“You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds. What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can.”
-St. Thomas More, Utopia
Ralph woke them all after a few hours. When they had shared a little food (Ralph and Hogan had done a little scrounging during their journey), they discussed what to do.
“Obviously,” said Ralph. “The first thing to do is to get to the docks as soon as possible so that we – and especially Ms. Marshall – can get off this island.”
“Do we know how to get there from here?” Helen asked.
“Of course!” said Ralph. “They’re not far. The trouble is, Prosser will certainly expect us to move in that direction, and it’s only too likely that we will encounter Mr. Simon or Mr. Wainwright or Ms. Orlich along our way.”
“And…what do we do then?”
“Improvise!” said Ralph cheerfully. “The same thing we’ve all been doing for the past few days!”
“Do you really not have anything better?” Helen asked.
“Well, if you can come up with a superior plan to deal with enemies who apparently cannot be killed, with the resources we have available, I would certainly be the first to say let’s hear it! If not, then, no I don’t believe we do have anything better.”
The others thought about it, but they couldn’t come up with anything.
“Then it’s settled,” said Ralph. “Now for the final race! All together, and God be with us all!”
So they set out from the Blue Room (Helen felt a wonderful sense of relief in leaving that almost made her forget her fears), down a long, dark hallway (most of the lights seemed to have failed by now), turned right at a junction, and continued down another corridor.
“Hey, Ralph,” said Hendricks suddenly. “You, uh, you seem to know your way around this place.”
“I have a good head for directions,” Ralph said cheerily.
“Yeah, but…have you been here before?”
Ralph kept moving, but he didn’t answer the question right away.
“As a matter of fact,” he said after a while. “I have. Though, the circumstances were such that I’d rather not say anything more about them. At least, not until after we’ve escaped. Surely you understand.”
Hendricks thought he had some idea of why Ralph wouldn’t want to talk about it.
“Are you…one of them?” Helen asked, slowly.
“One of whom?”
“The, you know, Enhanced People?”
Ralph laughed his booming laugh.
“No! Not at all!” he said. “Neither Prosser nor any other of his butchers have done anything at all to me! Hah! As if they could! No, no, perish the thought, my friends!”
The very idea seemed to strike him as extremely funny, for he kept laughing for a long time, his deep, rolling laughter echoing all up and down the corridors. They would have asked him to be quiet, reminding him that they were trying to avoid detection and that there might be God-knows-what lurking around the next corner, but his laugh was so infectious that they found they couldn’t help laughing along with him, despite the fact that they didn’t even know what the joke was.
“We…really shouldn’t be doing this…” Helen gasped.
“You’re probably right,” Hendricks said, forcing himself back into seriousness. “What, uh, what are we even laughing about?”
“Oh, I’ll explain the joke later,” said Ralph, still chuckling. “And of course, it shall be ruined you’ll still wonder why you laughed. So, really, you might as well just let it remain a mystery.”
No one quite knew what to say to this, so they continued on in silence for a while, feeling the unease of those who have indulged in some pleasure while duty still called.
The harbor, it transpired, was set in a wide, half-moon-shaped bay, partially covered with a high concrete overhang. Piers and docks crisscrossed almost the whole bay, with at least a dozen speedboats, barges, and even a couple small yachts tied up to them. Around the outer edge of the harbor was a huge seawall with a single, heavy metal gate set right in the center
And the gate was closed.
“Uh…” Hendricks said, pointing.
“Yes, that is a problem,” said Ralph. “But perhaps if we can get out to it, we might be able to open it again. At the very least, we ought to try.”
They stepped out onto the docks. The creak of the wood beneath their feet sounded somehow ominous and foreboding in the stillness of the harbor.
“Which one do we take?” Helen asked in a whisper.
“Whichever one we can get to first,” Hogan answered.
This, it turned out, was a small, white speedboat tied up only a few rows down from the door they had entered. They hurried down the dock towards it, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of pursuit or ambush. But no one appeared, and no one stopped them.
“That’s odd,” said Hogan. “I really thought someone would be here…”
“Maybe we just lucky?” Helen suggested. “I mean, we’re kinda overdue, don’t you think?”
Ralph didn’t answer, but was looking around with a troubled expression, as though he thought he must have missed something.
Hendricks reached the boat first and leapt down into it. A second after he landed, something struck it violently from under the water, knocking him off his feet.
“Hendricks!” Helen shrieked.
As Hendricks scrambled to right himself, the boat was struck again, harder this time. So hard, in fact, that it lifted partway out of the water. Hendricks fell backwards with a cry that was cut short as he hit the warm salt water.
The others were yelling, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying. He floundered, tried to get his bearings, and struck out for the dock. As he swam, he saw a large, dark shape moving through the water in front of him. A shape that was horribly familiar…
He reached up to the docks. Ralph seized his hand and lifted him out as easily as if he were a child.
“What happened?”
“Go!” Hendricks gasped, grabbing Helen’s hand the moment his feet touched the wood and pulling her back towards shore. “Get off the docks!”
“What…” Helen began.
“It’s them! The sh…”
But another second rendered any explanations superfluous. An enormous shark rose out of the water to their left, spread a pair of hang-glider-sized wings, and flew straight at the four of them, its jaws wide.
“EVERYBODY DUCK!” Hogan roared, but it was hardly necessary. All four of them dropped to the deck and the great fish soared over them, bending its head down to try to snap Hendricks up, before folding its wings and diving back under the water.
“What the hell are they doing here?!” Helen gasped after they had taken shelter on the shoreline.
“Well,” said Ralph quietly. “That’s unfortunate.”
“What?” the others asked sharply.
“It seems that Dr. Prosser has made very good use of his resources,” said Ralph. “Rather than wasting any of his people here, he simply shut the gate and…flushed the last two sharks in.”
“So what do we do?”
“Well, unless you would prefer to try an alternate means of escape,” said Ralph. “We simply need to acquire a larger vessel. One that they would be unable to overturn.”
“That yacht,” said Hogan, nodding at the smaller of the two that were tied up on the other side of the bay. “I doubt they’d be able to knock that one over.”
“Very well,” said Ralph. “Unfortunately, though, I don’t think we’ll be able to cover much of the journey from shore; we’ll have to venture back out onto the docks. Are you entirely sure you want to risk it.”
“Yes,” said Helen firmly. “At least I am. I’m ready to get off this damn island.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Hendricks. Hogan nodded, hefting his rifle.
“Excellent!” said Ralph. “Then let us go forward boldly and trust to providence for our security!”
Still working out what this meant, the others took deep breaths and rushed out onto the docks. The sharks weren’t long in attacking. From far out in the harbor, they each sprang into the air, spread their wings, and soared in matching arcs to the four companions. Hogan fired at them, causing one of the sharks to fold its wings and dive back into the water, but the other, despite its wounds, flew on.
“Duck!”
Everyone dropped to the deck as the shark flew over them, snapping at their heads, but too high to reach. It re-entered the water with a splash that soaked them all.
“Now!”
Ralph and Hogan were up in an instant. Helen and Hendricks were still stumbling to their feet when the dock lurched violently beneath their feet. The next minute, the whole structure collapsed.
Hendricks plunged into the warm water, bumping painfully against Helen and the pieces of pier as he scrambled to the surface. Looking around, he saw that a twenty-foot section of dock had been torn completely away. Ralph and Hogan were already swimming for the next section of the pier, but it looked miles away.
“Come on!” he called, and he and Helen struck out after them as fast as they could go.
But the sharks could swim much faster, and one of them was already behind them, its dorsal fin streaking through water like a knife.
Hendricks looked back; the shark was closing in. They would never escape…
Without thinking, he grabbed Helen and pushed her in front of himself, so that he was between her and the shark. She made some sound of protest, but swallowed a lot of salt water before she could get any words out. Hendricks looked back, saw the great jaws open wide…
Then, suddenly, the shark stopped dead a foot from his face. For a brief moment it was thrashing and snapping right in front of him, as though it were battling some invisible foe, and the next thing he knew, it had been jerked backwards into the water and out of sight.
“What the…” he gasped.
“Come on!” They both turned back and swam as fast as they could toward Hogan and Ralph’s outstretched hands.
“What happened?” Hogan asked as they pulled them up.
“No idea…” Hendricks began, but Helen cut him off by hitting him hard across the face.
“You bastard!” she snapped. “Don’t ever, ever do anything like that again!”
“No violence, if you please!” said Ralph, catching her as she made to swing again. “There’s plenty of that going on without us turning on each other!”
“You promised!” Helen said, trying to shake her hands out of Ralph’s grip.
“Oh, yeah,” said Hendricks. “Well…”
“Worry about it later!” Hogan snapped. “We have to move before either that thing or its friend comes back.”
Helen glared at him, but they hurried along behind the others as they raced towards the yacht.
“What about the gate?” Hendricks asked as they all climbed onboard.
“We can try to open it when we get closer,” Hogan said. “Worst comes to worst, you can use your grenade to blow the damn thing off its hinges!”
Hendricks untied them and they all raced into the cabin. Hogan seized the controls and the boat began to move slowly away from the dock. Something bumped hard up against the hull, but the boat only shook a little and continued to move.
“Hah!” gasped Helen, sinking onto one of the seats. “I don’t care how big those sharks are; they can’t stop this thing!”
And, very likely, the sharks couldn’t. But just as she finished saying this, four enormous, black tentacles, each as thick as a young tree, rose up out of the water and tore through the cabin.
They all screamed and ducked while the tentacles ripped trough the windows and the walls, thrashing about, trying to find someone or something to grab a hold of. One seized the wheel and pulled it off like the lid of a soda-bottle. Another ripped the railing right off the deck, while a third simply began seizing bits of the deck itself and tearing up the boards.
“The Octodile…” Helen muttered, gazing in awed terror at the tentacles.
“Abandon ship!” Hendricks shouted, and seizing Helen’s hand he rose up to a crouching position and stumbled for the door. Ralph and Hogan were just ahead of him, while two of the tentacles were ripping off the roof.
They reached the deck. Ralph, showing superb balance, sprang onto the dock, which was still only about six feet away. Hogan leapt after him, nearly missed, caught his outstretched hand, and was pulled up after him. Hendricks was just about to jump, when the boat suddenly lurched sideways, tipping him back, away from his friends. He and Helen both fell off their feet, seizing edges of the deck to stop themselves form being dumped into the water.
Then, they both watched in horror as the massive, dark shape of the Octodile – seemingly swollen to nightmarish proportions since they had seen it last – lifted itself out of the water and onto the rapidly-floundering boat with a low growl. It’s ugly, blunt snout was turned towards them, its green, silted eyes narrowed in malevolent glee as it contemplated its meal…
Then a series of loud barks announced that Hogan had fired upon it. The monster roared and with alarming speed dove off of the side of the boat towards the docks.
“Run for it!” Ralph shouted, pushing Hogan away back toward the shore. “You two too! We’ll meet up later!”
Hendricks nodded, more out of habit than because he thought Ralph could see him, and calling to Helen jumped over the side and began swimming as hard as he could to the next dock. Behind them they could hear a confused mix of the roars of the Octodile, mixed in with the barks of Hogan’s rifle and a number of shouts and the snapping of wooden planks.
Hendricks reached the dock, pulled himself up, and turned to help Helen up as well. The Octodile, he now saw, was ripping the previous dock to pieces in what seemed an almost methodical fashion. Ralph and Hogan had already retreated back up the pier and were navigating the gaps that the sharks had torn in them. Having apparently given up on these potential victims, the Octodile suddenly turned its huge head back towards Helen and Hendricks.
There was maybe a split second that they were too terrified to move. Then, as the monster heaved its massive body back into the water, Helen and Hendricks found themselves on their feet and running as fast as their tired legs could carry them down the dock, though where to from there, they didn’t know.
The pier swayed and shook ominously under their feet as the Octodile swept a part of it aside with a wave of one of its tentacles. They both stumbled and lost their footing for the moment, and as they did so a Flying Shark burst from the water in front of them and soared in their direction, jaws agape. They ducked, and the shark flew on. As it flew over the Octodile, the enormous tentacles whipped up through the air as though trying to snag the shark right out of the sky. The fish banked right just in time, flew on for a short ways, and then dove back under the water.
“Oh, why doesn’t it just eat them instead of chasing us!?” Helen snapped as they stumbled back up to their feet. “I mean, they’re more of an actual meal; we’re practically appetizers to that thing!”
For whatever reasons, though the Octodile had decided to continue to pursue them rather than to try to chase down the sharks. Having paused briefly trying to catch its airborne prey, it once again directed its attention to the two humans struggling down the docks.
“Where are we even going?” Helen gasped as the Octodile smashed another section of dock and capsized a small barge that was in its way.
“I don’t…THERE!” Hendricks pointed. Another door leading back into the facility had just come into view as they rounded the curve in the shoreline. But it was still a good distance away.
“Just…just keep going,” he added, as they both considered the distance to the door compared to their rapidly increasing proximity to the Octodile.
So they kept going, stumbling and sliding on the wet, shaking docks as the monster bore down on them. As it drew closer, its front tentacles reached forward, feeling along the docks right behind them, picking up and discarding boxes, nets, bits of equipment, and anything else they happened to find as they crept closer and closer…
One of the tentacles made a grab at Hendricks’s foot, and he jumped out of its grip just in time. The other grabbed at Helen’s ankle…and she didn’t.
Helen fell forward, scrapping her hands on the planks. A second after she landed, the Octodile began to pull her back, screaming, towards its waiting jaws. Hendricks skidded to a halt and turned back to help, made a dive for her outstretched hands, missed, threw himself forward again, and caught her.
Now they both were being dragged back along the dock, while the Octodile pulled itself closer. Hendricks tried to brace himself with his heels, but he still was dragged along, and Helen’s wet hands were slipping from his grasp.
She was over the side of the dock now, her feet dangling in the water, her face, which he couldn’t help looking straight into, was terrified, her wide eyes pleading with him to hold on. Hendricks braced his feet against an iron cleat, and for a moment they stopped. But he couldn’t pull her out of the beast’s grip, and as he felt her hands slipping out of his, and he realized that there was no hope; he couldn’t hold her like this. He had to try something else.
“Here,” he gasped, pulling her hands over the cleat. “Hold onto this!”
“What? No! Don’t let me go!” she pleaded.
“I’m not,” he said, hardly knowing what he was saying. “I just…I need to try something else! Trust me!”
Helen looked at him, desperately, and nodded. She grabbed onto the cleat, and Hendricks, with a painful wrench to his heart, let go. He ran along the pier and turned a corner as more tentacles shot out of the water towards her. The Octodile was closing in.
“HENDRICKS!” Helen screamed as another tentacle wrapped around her waist.
Hendricks chose his position, hesitated for a split second, and jumped onto the Octodile’s back. He skidded on the wet scales and nearly slid off onto the other side, but he managed to throw an around its thick neck and squeezed as tightly as he could.
The Octodile roared in fury. Hendricks just had time to see it release Helen before he found himself dunked under the water as it rolled over. He came up again, sputtering, and went down again almost before he could take a breath. Again and again he spun over, while the black tentacles swirled through the air and water like a giant pinwheel, smashing bits of the dock like a lawnmower.
Suddenly, the Octodile stopped spinning and made a violent twisting motion as it tried to find something to bite. Hendricks tightened his grip and began to wonder how on Earth he was going to get off.
“Oh, God!” he exclaimed to no one in particular. “This was really stupid!”
The Octodile roared again and thrashed about as Hendricks held on for dear life. Then, all of a sudden, a thick, black tentacle found him and wrapped itself around his stomach. Before Hendricks knew what was happening, he had been pulled off the Octodile’s back and was soaring through the air before being dunked hard into the water.
The tentacle released him, and he began to struggle upwards, towards the surface.
“Hendricks!” Helen called as he broke the surface. She was standing at the edge of the pier, only a few yards away, reaching out to him. “Give me your hand!”
He swam towards her, reaching for her outstretched arm. But before he could go more than a few strokes, he felt three tentacles seize him all at once; one around his legs, another around his waist, the third about his neck. He gave a gasp of terror, then was pulled helplessly back through the water.
Hendricks knew it was hopeless; that there was nothing he could do, but he still struggled and tugged at the immoveable tentacle about his throat. He could see the Octodile approaching through the water, its massive jaws open, ready to swallow him whole.
Hendricks watched his death approach with a strange serenity. He was aware that he was terrified, but in a detached, almost clinical way. It didn’t seem to matter anymore, really…
Suddenly, the massive jaws snapped shut, but not on him. The Octodile seemed to go into convulsions of fury, and Hendricks felt the tentacle release him. Then he saw why; a long boat hook had been thrust down through its upper jaw.
Hendricks scrambled to the surface, gasping for breath. Immediately behind him, the water was boiling with the Octodile’s wrath. The deck was splintering as the tentacles tore through it , but Helen stayed on one nearby pier, looking very white, but holding out her hand for him. Hendricks swam for it as fast as he could, but as he looked up to reach it…
“LOOK OUT!”
Helen looked and ducked just in time to avoid the flying shark as it soared over her, made an unsuccessful snap with its jaws, continued over Hendricks, and finally crashed into the water right on top of the Octodile. There was terrible roar as the two beasts attacked each other, but Hendricks didn’t look back. Helen was back at the dock’s edge in an instant, grabbed his hand, and pulled him up out of the water.
A single glance told them that there was no longer any question of getting out this way. Almost all the boats were gone, and the ones that were left were out of reach beyond the open water where the two sea-monsters battled. Besides which, the water gates were still shut.
“Come on,” Hendricks gasped. “Back inside! Quick!”
They staggered back along the dock and through the door back into the facility. Before he shut it, Hendricks had a brief image of the flying shark being lifted, writhing and thrashing, out of the water, wrapped tightly in four massive tentacles.
He slammed the door, and they hurried through the dry dock and on to what must have been a holding tank on the other side, but this one mercifully empty.
“Thanks,” Hendricks gasped. “That was you who stabbed it, right?”
Helen nodded, still trying to catch her breath.
“That was…a lot smarter than jumping on it,” he added.
She gave what was either a sob or a chuckle in answer.
“By the way, Hendricks?” she managed after another second.
“What?”
“I think you’re officially not a coward anymore,” she said with a weak smile.
Next Week:
Chapter Twenty-One: The Real Monster
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