Above him, Gilly’s body went over the railing and thumped to the deck. After a moment the rope splashed back down. He looped it around his waist, cinched it tight, and tugged it. The rope tightened, then paused. He was two hundred and twenty pounds, fifteen more than he should be after a long winter of too many beers and frozen pizzas.
“Tie it off!” he shouted.
The rope loosened and he went back into the water. A moment later it tightened, then jerked three times in his grip. He began to climb the rope, relying on the strength of his forearms and shoulders, the rope burning against his palms. He cleared the water and placed his boots against the hull, trying to walk himself up the side and take some of the pressure off his upper body. He managed two steps, and then his boots slipped on the wet surface and he thudded against the hull, sliding almost all the way back down to the water.
Destiny’s face appeared above him, tight with panic. “It’s right here,” she whispered. “Don’t move.”
He turned, slowly rotating his body to face the ocean.
The creature was fifteen yards out, swimming parallel with them. It looked roughly half as long as the ship, a creature so immense his brain struggled to process the sight. For a moment his terror was overwhelmed with amazement as he watched it slither through the current, the trough of a wave occasionally exposing a green-black section of hide. It continued past, intent, the shadow of the massive head casting back and forth like a dog trying to catch a lost scent trail.
He turned a bit to watch it pass, and at his movement the creature banked hard. Even underwater he could see the lone green eye fix on him, the long and hideously barbed fangs growing as it opened its mouth. The rest of its body curled back behind it, the huge flippers positioning it so it was parallel to the ship.
“Shit,” he breathed, and went hand over hand up the rope, not bothering with his feet. In seconds he was at the railing and trying to pull himself over, Destiny’s hands wrapped in his drenched shirt as the water erupted behind him. The there was a moment of silence, the air murmuring unsteadily as it does prior to the passing of a train. Then the air became darker behind him, and the creature smashed into the ship.
The impact drove him over the railing, Destiny tumbling alongside him as they rolled to the opposite side of the deck way, thudding against the outside wall of the cabin rooms. The ship tilted back under the impact, pinning them there, and he waited for the pressure of teeth in his back.
Behind them, the boat sounded like it was coming apart. After a moment, he lifted his head and turned.
It had bit into the ship just to the right of the rope, missing him by several feet. It had crushed the railing in its massive jaws, smashing through them so its teeth were now embedded into the deck, caught in the fiberglass and wood. The creature was trying to swing its head to the side, the neck muscles bunching as it tried to free itself. Only its nostrils and the top part of its head were visible, black-green hide stretched over two massive humps that anchored its jaw muscles.
Slowly, his legs numb, Brian got to his feet. He moved toward the trapped creature, pulling the jackknife out of his pocket. The deck was covered in seawater and was tilting hard back toward the creature, which was halfway out of the water.
He grabbed a mangled section of railing and leaned over, the floorboards shaking under his feet. The creature was stuck, yes, but he saw instantly that it would not be for long; already its shaking had opened up the hole in which its tooth was embedded, and the creature’s own weight was working for it, pulling the tooth back to create a long furrow. The ship dipped down again, tilting dangerously, and from inside the ship he heard a chorus of faint screams.
He leaned down. It was not as big as it had looked in the water but it was still enormous, the body thick, swelling with powerful musculature where it entered the water twenty feet below them. The tail was whipping through the water, creating a rocking motion, adding to the momentum of the creature’s head shakes. He felt a strong urge to reach out and touch the wet hide, to feel the texture of it.
It had not yet seen him. And whatever else it might be, however intelligent it might be, it was now in the same frenzied and single-minded mode of any animal caught in a trap.
In front of him the nostrils flared and he moved without thinking, leaping from the deck onto its upper jaw, the flat, upturned surface just above its teeth. He hooked his free hand in one of the massive nostrils and felt a warm wash of air over his hand. The creature thrashed underneath him, and he slipped, saved from falling only by his grip on the edge of the nostril. The creature’s head twisted away and Brian slid over the top of the snout, now only two feet away from its good eye.
Its pupil contracted into a slit, and he could see himself reflected in the green eye, a hairy creature clinging to it like a louse. It did not move, did not do anything but watch him, and for a second he felt quite sure he would do nothing himself, that he would remain here affixed to it until it deigned to shrug him off.
Then he remembered Gilly, his hand spread open to the sky, stumps spurting blood. He brought the knife around in a short, vicious arc.
It jerked at the movement, breaking out of its reverie at the same moment Brian broke from his. The knife hit it on the bony protuberance under the eye socket, sliced through the hide to hit bone. It was jerked from his hand as the creature reared back, roaring in pain and fury. He felt its teeth come free of the deck way. He lunged as the creature fell away, grasping a section of railing that hung off the side of the deck.
He caught it, the brass slick under his hands. Underneath him he heard the creature fall into the ocean, and a second later the spray rose up to drench him. He was starting to slide down the severed railing, his palms sliding down the wet brass, when a hand closed over his wrist.
He looked up. Wells was lying on the deck, his bad arm folded under him. Destiny was holding onto his knees to keep him from sliding.
“Come on,” he said. “Get up here before it comes back for you.”
* * *
They huddled against the far wall, not wanting to move for fear it would hear them. Brian was shivering but did not feel cold; his body felt dislocated from his mind, his legs and torso were numb. Destiny stood slightly apart from them, breathing very deliberately. Brian wondered if she was going to hyperventilate.
He wondered if he was going to hyperventilate.
“Is it going to attack again?” she whispered
Wells shook his head. “I don’t know.” He turned to Brian. “That was an incredibly stupid thing to do,” he said. “At the same time, I think you frightened it a little. It may think twice before it attacks us again.”
“Oh, yeah,” Brian said. “I bet it’s pissing its pants. What the hell is that thing?”
Before Wells could answer they heard a man shout from somewhere in the bow, the deep Scandinavian accent from the man called Thor. Wells moved forward, peeking down the side of the ship. He ducked back, and they heard the man shout again. “They know we’re here,” Wells said.
“Well,” Brian said. “We did have a fucking sea monster hanging from the side of the boat.”
“It’s a plesiosaur,” Wells said. “Some species of it, a
Liopleurodon
or a kronosaur. Probably the latter. But it’s evolved significantly. It’s much larger, and the short-necked plesiosaurs had smooth teeth. This one has teeth that look like . . .”
“Ice saws.” Brian regarded Wells for a long moment. “It’s a dinosaur?”
Wells held up his hands. “Christ, man, I don’t know. What’d it look like to you?”
“I don’t know,” Brian said. “All I know is that it missed me somehow.”
“It’s lost its depth perception,” Wells said. “It’s very visual. It hasn’t figured out how to focus with only one eye.”
“Bullshit,” Brian said. “It saw Gilly’s body just fine. It was playing with it like a dolphin playing with a ball.”
“That was in the open sea,” Wells whispered. “Here, alongside the ship, things are more difficult. There’s a backdrop, conflicting images. It is an open sea predator, meant to attack and kill in the voids.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Destiny asked.
“I don’t,” Well said, frowning. “I know ancient sea life, though, and I saw it when it attacked my research vessel, not so clearly as just now, just a glimpse. But I suspected what it might be even then.” He laughed humorlessly. “More than a thousand years we’ve been sailing the seas, with tales of sea monsters around that entire time. And modern man never gave them a serious thought.”
“It can’t be a dinosaur,” Destiny said. “Can it? They’ve been gone for millions of years.”
“The ones on land, yes,” Wells said. He turned and studied the fog-shrouded seas. “The life under the Arctic has never been fully catalogued, and I suspect that’s where it comes from.”
“Why is that?” Brian asked.
“Two reasons. You’ve heard of Bergmann’s Rule? No? It says that body mass increases with latitude. This is much larger than known fossil records.”
“So it’s been alive for millions of years?” Destiny asked. “I thought that was impossible.”
“It is,” Wells said. “Its life span would be no more than a hundred years, perhaps double that. Its species would likely spend considerable time in hibernation.”
“And what’s the second reason?”
Well pointed at the water. “The Kaala current. It’s spawned a massive migration, a flux of movement from the Arctic waters to the south. The invertebrates came first, the plankton. Then the others, the next benthic level and the next, getting bigger and bigger. This species is the apex predator.”
The breeze freshened and on it were more voices, men moving toward their location. Wells’s voice dropped and Destiny moved closer, until she was at brushing against Brian. He could feel the warmth of her body and realized he was cold, very cold, probably pre-hypothermic. The adrenaline rush had chased the worst of the effects away, but if Destiny hadn’t thrown the rope down to him, he’d likely be unconscious by now.
“You talk like there’s more than one,” Destiny said.
“We’ve only seen one,” Wells said. “But it didn’t melt out of an iceberg. The only way it could have survived this long is through reproduction, likely with long periods of hibernation in between periods of activity. Dinosaurs weren’t,
aren’t
the same as reptiles, but they’re believed to have similar biology. Cold-dormancy is one of their traits they may share.”
“Its breath was warm,” Brian said. “It’s not cold-blooded.”
“Yes,” Wells said. “Once it emerges from hibernation its body temperature would elevate to a level close to ours. And that means it will have more energy than a cold-blooded creature, that it can attack night or day.”
“Listen,” Brian said. “Whatever it is, it has flippers instead of feet. That means the minute we get on land, the less time I’m going to spend worrying about ending up as its chew toy.”
“Yes,” Wells said. “Captain Moore might not have seen it yet, but he can look at this”—Wells gestured toward the ruined deck way and crumpled railings—“and understand it’s time for some serious help.”
“He mentioned a tug,” Brian said.
“We need a large vessel,” Wells said. “Or an airlift. We have to make sure Captain Moore sends for one or the other, and warn them of the danger. A tugboat is too small.”
“There might be a problem with that,” Destiny said.
They turned to look at her.
“My boss,” Destiny said, looking down as she pushed out the wrinkles in her sleeves, then up at them. “He has a game going downstairs, separate from the regular casino stuff, supposed to be secret. High powered.” She considered for a moment. “The captain might listen to him. I doubt he’ll listen to either of you.”
“She’s probably right,” Wells said. “This guy, Frankie? He seems to have a lot of clout. Perhaps we can convince him to come up here, see what happened, and then he’ll understand.”
“He’ll understand,” Destiny said. “He’ll understand, all right.”
“Then we go directly to the captain?”
“I’m not so sure he’s the right guy,” Brian said. He quickly told them the story of the heroin Kharkov had planted in Gilly’s bag. “Moore is doing whatever he can to stay out here. He either doesn’t believe that this thing is . . . whatever it is . . . or he doesn’t care.”
“Then who do we talk to?” Wells asked. “We’re too far out for cell phone range.”
Brian went to Gilly’s waist and opened the waterproof seabag clipped to his belt. He pushed aside the flare pistol, the flares, the wire cutters, and the space blanket. At the bottom, inside a plastic baggie for extra protection, was a small handheld marine radio. He unzipped the baggie and turned the knob. The radio came on with a squelch of static, tuned to Channel 16. He stared at it for a moment and then flipped it off.
“Not working?” Wells asked.
He tapped the short antennae. “The only people sure to hear this are up there,” he said, motioning to the control tower of the
Nokomis
. The radar spun slowly, the top of the antennae lost in the fog. Next to it was the large marine radio antennae, the highest point on the
Nokomis
. “Even if I get through, they’ll just contradict me with their own message.”
“So?” Wells asked. “How do we proceed?”
“We split up,” Brian said. “You try the captain again, tell him what we saw. Try to sound . . . reasonable. I’ll give you fifteen minutes, then I’m going to go up there, see if I can make us heard some other way.”
“And if he agrees?”
“I’ll have this on,” Brian said, holding up the radio. “I’ll keep it on scan, so I’ll hear any communications he makes. If he makes the call for help, good. If not, I do my thing.”
“Your thing?” Destiny said.
“I’ll take away their ability to contradict me.” Brian pointed to the control tower, thinking out the approach in his mind. It wouldn’t be easy; he needed to get up one level, cross over the relatively open space that was the outdoor recreation area on B-deck, which was basically a couple rows of beach loungers, green plastic stretched over metal frames surrounding a shuffleboard area. Then he would have to climb up the back side of the control tower without being noticed, get up on top, then repeat the whole thing coming back down....