Kronos (37 page)

They’d been petrified after he hit the first big wave, but the little buggers hadn’t broken yet. While he stood with one hand on the wheel and the other on the throttle, the three little turds sat on the wooden slat that served as a bench at the center of the boat. All three had vise grips on the bench, as it was the only thing that kept them from soaring into the air and away from the whaler, which was Jack’s end goal.

They all had life preservers on, so there was no fear of any of them drowning, but he’d filled their heads with so many stories about sharks on their way to the boat launch he knew they’d be scared to death after a quick dip.

As he approached the biggest wave he’d hit all afternoon, he looked back and saw a priceless vision—three sets of wide eyes and three gaping mouths. Only, something was off. They were too afraid…and looking beyond the wave.

Jack snapped his head toward the bow of the boat, which rode high because of their speed, but on his feet he could see clearly what lay ahead. And it made no sense at all. A sleek, dark form rose and fell into the ocean like a whale. But the hump repeated over and over in either direction. Jack followed the humps to the left, toward shore, and saw the head, with its bright yellow eyes, gleaming like lighthouse beacons through fog.

“Oh man, oh man, oh—”

The whaler hit the wave and shot up. Distracted and unprepared for the sudden movement, the steering wheel caught Jack on the chin as his knees buckled beneath him. The hull of the whaler took to the air, thumped off the massive creature, and came crashing back down. Jack fell back into his chair, unconscious. The boat pounded forward and didn’t stop until Jerry reached past his older brother and pulled the throttle back.

The boat coasted to a stop and bobbed in the waves. The three boys clambered to the back of the boat and watched the giant sea creature gracefully undulate toward shore.

“Did you see that?” Stan shouted.

“That was awesome!” Aaron added, hopping up and down with excitement.

Jerry joined them at the back of the boat and watched as boats peeled away from the charging monster as it made its way toward shore.

A loud roar sounded from overhead as a massive gray helicopter bearing a Navy insignia followed in pursuit, not thirty feet above the ocean.

Jerry threw his hands in the air. “Whoohoo!”

Atticus couldn’t help but smile when he saw the three kids in the Boston whaler cheering Kronos on. To most adults Kronos was the embodiment of sheer terror. To those boys, he signified that all their fantasies about dragons and aliens were more than just figments of the imagination. Atticus pictured himself as a child seeing Kronos. Would his feelings have been any different then? Would they have been if Giona hadn’t been taken?

In fact, as it became clear that Kronos, who had taken to the surface in the shallower waters, was truly headed for shore, his feelings for the creature changed further. If Giona still lived; if she was deposited safely on the beach; if the creature had fought for and very nearly died protecting his daughter, then, in a very real way, it had become Giona’s protector, willing to risk its life for hers. But for what? Some symbiotic relationship? The natural response of most animals would be to spit and run. But Kronos’s response seemed much more…human. Atticus didn’t bother asking himself why Kronos had taken her in the first place. He knew the answer was beyond him for now, but Kronos’s actions since then had been in protection of his sole passenger.

Of course, Kronos’s redemption in Atticus’s esteem wouldn’t be complete until he saw his daughter again, living and breathing. Though, if Giona hadn’t survived, his quest for vengeance would still be over. It was an odd feeling, but no matter the outcome, his desire to see a creature like Kronos dead had waned. This was a creature to be respected and treasured, not hunted, regardless of its crimes against humanity. After all, humanity had done far worse to the oceans. Any man that would hunt and kill a creature such as Kronos ran the risk of becoming as cold as Trevor Manfred.

The pilot’s voice, booming through his headset, snapped him back to the task at hand. “Seahawk Alpha to
Rough Rider,
come in. Over.”

“Copy that, Seahawk Alpha. This is
Rough Rider.
Over.”

“
Rough Rider,
I’ve got a dead fix on our…monster. Permission to fire? Over.”

Atticus’s eyes grew wide. He shouted, “No!” but his microphone wasn’t on, and the pilot couldn’t hear him.

A new voice came on the line, deep and commanding. “Negative, Seahawk. This is Captain Vilk. You get my man on the beach and you head home. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. Over.”

The pilot looked at Atticus, his eyes wide. “Uhh, copy that, Captain. Will do. Over and out.”

Through the windshield, Atticus could clearly see Kronos moving toward the beach. Onshore, the approaching giant had just been spotted by the sea of humanity filling every bit of real estate on the massive beach. As though a single living entity, the crowd of beachgoers dropped what they were doing and ran for the seawall. He couldn’t hear them, but he imagined hundreds of voices rising with absolute and abject horror.

Kronos slowed as he approached the beach, which was lucky for the stragglers who still fled the sea, and allowed the Seahawk to overtake it. The pilot expertly twisted the chopper around and came down for a landing. Only, he didn’t land. The pilot’s eyes were glued out the windshield where he could see Kronos—face-to-face—bearing down on their position. The pilot turned to Atticus and shouted, “Jump!”

Atticus could see the terrified pilot was only seconds away from pulling up and away, so he shoved open the door and leapt without looking, which was good because the fifteen-foot drop would have made him pause. The chopper pulled away before Atticus hit the sand.

A half-finished sand castle helped break Atticus’s fall, but the impact tore several stitches and sent a jolt of pain through his body so intense that he nearly lost consciousness. He snapped back to reality when the screams of the crowd, now gathered at the perimeter of the beach, reached a crescendo.

Atticus crawled away from the ruined sand castle and looked toward the ocean. His view followed the fleeing Seahawk, and then turned down, where a massive wave, pushed forward by the bulk of Kronos’s body, crashed to shore. As the water spread thin and receded, Kronos emerged in full. In one quick surge he hoisted his fifteen-foot head twenty feet in the air and laid it down on the sand.

The crowd’s shrill cries turned to shouts of wonderment as they realized the creature wasn’t able to move on land.

Kronos opened his jaws, revealing his massive teeth, which drew a communal gasp from the crowd. Raising his head up and down, Kronos hacked like a giant cat bringing up a huge hairball. And then, all at once, the cause of this physiological response launched from his open maw like a black ball of phlegm and landed on the beach.

As Atticus leapt to his feet and rushed toward the sprawled object, he could hear the crowd muttering as one. Kronos suddenly veered his head toward Atticus. Skidding to a stop in the sand, Atticus realized he still didn’t truly trust Kronos or his motives. But as the large yellow eyes met his for the second time, he felt that same intelligence and connection.

Atticus held out his hand. A reflexive gesture.

Kronos leaned in close. Atticus could smell the foul fishy breath. The sharp teeth looked even larger up close, nearly the size of Atticus’s forearm. Kronos stopped a few feet short of Atticus’s outstretched hand and stared at him. Atticus looked into Kronos’s eye up close. “Thank you.”

With that, Kronos reared up, twisted around, and began pushing his massive body through the shallows and into deeper waters. A cry escaped Atticus’s mouth as he turned back to see the wet-suit-clad form of his daughter struggling to stand. His voice was full of anguish, joy, and relief. Giona heard the voice and turned.

“Daddy!”

As he reached her, Atticus fell to his knees and embraced his daughter, who was now sobbing uncontrollably. He held her, oblivious to the rank smell of rotten fish in her hair or the uproarious cheers of the spectators, who clapped louder than a Super Bowl crowd.

“I love you, baby.”

Atticus leaned back and looked Giona up and down. Her skin had paled and wrinkled, as though she’d spent far too long in the water. Her purple hair had lost its dye and returned to its natural black. And her deep brown eyes, so much like her mother’s, had lost some of their innocence, but had gained something else.

“I love you too, Daddy.”

Atticus held her again, afraid she would disappear, and didn’t let go until a distant roar coupled with a shrill whistle told him the Air Force had arrived. He looked out to sea. Kronos still skittered across the surface of the ocean, an easy target. Giona saw it too. They stood together.

“Kronos! Go down!” Atticus shouted.

“Run away!” Giona chimed in. “Go deep!”

And then he did. One by one the humps of Kronos’s massive body slid beneath the surface of the Atlantic. The last one disappeared just as two F-16s and an A10 Warthog flew low overhead, the roar of their engines drowning out the shouting and excited crowd of beachgoers. With their target now submerged, the jets peeled away and began a long, lazy circle along the coast.

Atticus turned and looked at Giona, whose eyes were still on the ocean. She’d spent five full days living inside Kronos, and yet, only moments after being expelled from what was surely hell, she shouted in concern for the beast, fearful for his safety. An odd pattern scratched in the sand behind Giona caught Atticus’s attention. He leaned back and found a single word etched into the sand.

He craned his head and read the word aloud, “Exeter.”

Giona turned to him and smiled. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Atticus smiled wide, staring into his daughter’s amazing, living eyes, and burst out laughing. He hugged her again, and she squeezed back with all her strength. By the time they separated, the crowd had made its way back to the beach and was headed in their direction.

“So,” Giona said, looking at his stitched arm, bandaged shoulder, and bruised face. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

Atticus smiled wryly. “Like you said, we have a lot to talk about.”

Giona giggled, which made Atticus’s heart soar. His girl was back, his little baby whole and intact. He put his arms around her and started through the crowd, who were shouting questions and clapping. “Let’s go home.”

57

Exeter, New Hampshire

It was a perfectly brisk Sunday afternoon in October, the kind that always inspired Atticus to go apple picking or hiking in the woods. The earth smelled raw and alive, and the crisp clean New Hampshire air invigorated the lungs.

But the quiet pleasures of the orchard seemed to be a faraway land. Giona had spent the morning in church, as she had every Sunday since Kronos had deposited her on Hampton’s sandy shoreline. While her recent research on the topic of God was understandable, Atticus still found it odd that she was attending church. Atticus knew she was still trying to work out whether what she had experienced was genuine or a delusion. Of course, regardless of what conclusion she finally came to, the effect on their lives because of the summer’s events had been profound: first in the struggle for understanding, then, in a total redirecting of their lives.

Their return home had been short-lived, as the couple who’d bought their home in Rye cared little about the ordeal they’d gone through or the fact that the house wasn’t packed. On that first Sunday, when Giona attended church for the first time in her life, a moving crew came, packed up their personal belongings, and took them away to a storage facility. Of course, after all the videotapes of Giona’s dramatic reunion with Atticus on the beach hit the news, they became worldwide celebrities.

While keeping Giona sheltered from the media blitzkrieg, Atticus took full advantage of it. He’d signed a book deal, sold the movie rights, had appeared on
Good Morning America,
Oprah,
and
The Colbert Report.
He’d been front-page news in every paper around the world, while news of Trevor Manfred’s disappearance had been pushed back further than the classifieds. He’d even graced the cover of
Time
magazine, which had hailed him as “Father of the Year” for first saving his daughter from rapists, then five days later rescuing her from the world’s first honest-to-goodness sea monster. Atticus had explained that Kronos had delivered Giona of its own accord, but the videotapes showing Atticus jumping from the Seahawk and extending his hand toward the giant sea creature was all the evidence people needed to set their imaginations soaring.

Only two months after their ordeal, they had seen Atticus, Giona, and Kronos action figures in the hands of children; posters featuring Atticus raising his hand to the giant Kronos in the windows of shops; and Giona’s personal favorite—plush toys. She had one each of Atticus and Kronos on her bed, which for the past two months had been a hotel suite in Portsmouth.

Conner had stayed with them for a week, helping deal with the initial media rush, but had returned to Ann Arbor and his family. Atticus’s father recovered and returned home, but his parents had yet to visit. They planned on coming as soon as he and Giona found a new house.

Giona insisted that they live in the town whose name she had etched in the sand. They’d been looking for a house in Exeter ever since, but had found nothing that felt right. While their housing budget had skyrocketed in the past two months as the massive checks began to clear, Atticus had no intention of changing their lifestyle. A simple house big enough for two would suit their needs. While the money would help with Giona’s future, he was through being a celebrity. It seemed there was nowhere he could go, save the open ocean, to escape the wide-eyed stares of passersby. It was the same for Giona, and she’d begun home schooling as a result.