Novels2Search
Out of the Storm
Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The amber light above the stairs strobed on and off. On and off. Donnie sat on one of the couches in his firm’s reception, across the floor from the windows and closer to the blinking light.

“I’ve got to get home,” Donnie said like a mantra. “I’ve got to get home, I’ve got to get home.”

Holding his phone between his knees, Donnie kept checking for a signal. There was nothing there, the storm or the tsunami must have wiped out any phone towers in the area or something. Eventually, Donnie turned the phone off. With no electricity to recharge it, he had to save the battery until there was the possibility of getting a signal. As much as he wanted to talk to Alessa, that almost certainly wouldn’t happen tonight.

How many people had died? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Donnie couldn’t wrap his head around it. He had no idea how bad the destruction had been or how far the water had spread, or how far up and down the coastline might be affected. All he knew was what he could see outside the office windows. Directly below, the water was at least two stories high and covered streets, cars, stores and building entryways. With the dark and ongoing rain, even that was difficult to make out.

Rescue could be days away. Not for the city as a whole, he was sure, no doubt the government was already scrambling. But for himself, alone in the building, they could be a while coming for him. He had no idea how long it would take for the water to return to the ocean either. There was so much water. How long had it taken in disasters he’d heard about in other countries? It was a wave, surely it would roll in and roll back out, although in this case it would leave a lot of devastation in its wake. The fact that it had occurred at the same time as this once-in-a-hundred-years storm though made the whole thing feel unnatural. Certainly right now, looking down, it didn’t look like the water was going anywhere.

“Alessa, I’m sorry,” Donnie said. “Goddamnit.”

Alessa had to be safe, Donnie told himself. Their apartment was on the tenth floor, and miles and miles from the shore. If the water even reached that far there was no way it could reach her, or seriously damage their building. They had food and water, he supposed. Enough for a few days. Then he thought about the baby. The stress couldn’t be good for Alessa at this late stage, or the baby. Maybe it could even bring on early labour. Nobody would be there to help her if it did, he thought.

Phone tucked in his pocket, Donnie swivelled around and lay down. Several cushions were scattered on the couch. He tucked a couple under his head and stared at the ceiling. The amber light continued to strobe on and off. The sound of rain echoed across the office. He had wanted a little time to himself, Donnie thought, and now he had it. Anger twisted in on him. He wanted to rage and cry, and take his frustrations out on himself. There was no point trying to take them out on the rain or the flood. Without knowing if he would have made it home if he’d left work when he should have, or what might have happened, he turned in all inward. Thrashing, he tossed and turned on the couch like his body had been wound up like a spring.

Across the city, thousands upon thousands of people were dead. The damage was incalculable. Swathes of the city were completely underwater, skyscrapers jutting up like islands from the inland ocean. Many thousands were still alive, however. Some clamoured for high ground or places that would be more secure. Others were involved in makeshift rescue ops, digging people from the rubble of partially collapsed buildings or fishing them from powerful currents. Others, like Donnie, simply settled in to wait out the night in hope of rescue or a change of circumstances. Refuse was carried through the streets, as were bodies, sometimes snagging on buildings and creating small islands and dams as well. For many who saw them, the corpses were horrific. But unseen, unnoticed, something far worse moved through the waters. Dark, tentacled shapes spreading themselves throughout the flooded city.

~~~

Eventually, Donnie must have slept. He only knew for sure because he closed his eyes at one point when it had been pitch black and when he woke up a hazy kind of dawn was filtering across the office. He’d drooled across his cheek and onto the couch. Wiping it off, Donnie sat up and stretched out, stiff from sleeping on the unfamiliar surface.

Curiosity wanted to drive Donnie straight to the windows but first he fished his phone out of his pocket. There was still no signal when he turned it on. He tried calling anyway but it was impossible to reach Alessa. Getting up, he stumbled to one of the nearby cubicles. Landlines weren’t working either.

Donnie continued over to the windows, near his own desk where he usually sat with his back to the tremendous view. Unbelievably, the rain hadn’t stopped. It had calmed down considerably though, reduced to a light shower that splattered the glass instead of last night’s torrential downpour. Donnie hadn’t checked the time when he turned his phone on but it seemed to be just after dawn and a weak, grey light filtered through the clouds. Pressing one hand to the glass, he looked over the city.

“Oh, my God,” Donnie said.

The city was in ruins. Most of the buildings surrounding Donnie’s office tower were intact but the streets were still flooded. Everything at ground level had disappeared under at least two stories of grey water, filled with wreckage, eddying to and fro with strange currents. A thick pall of mist hung over everything. Ruin and flood filled the landscape as far as he could see. The waterfront and shoreline were just gone. And Donnie was struck by how silent it all looked. He couldn’t see rescue choppers flitting over the city, or boats, or other survivors like him. On a normal day of course the noise of the street wouldn’t have actually reached the office but the city never seemed so empty, not even first thing in the morning. Now, it all looked drowned and eerie and dead. The buildings were giant headstones sticking out of a flooded graveyard. If he wanted to, it would have been easy to imagine he was the only living person left in the city.

“Alessa, I’m sorry, I don’t know how I’m going to get home,” Donnie said to himself. “I hope you’re okay.”

Horrified as he was, Donnie was also hungry and impatient to do something other than stand and stare. He shut his eyes and turned away, walking several metres with his eyes closed to avoid looking back at the city as he quelled a rising panic. He circled the office to the breakroom. The windows in there weren’t floor to ceiling, they let in enough light for him to see but he could easily avoid looking out at the destruction. Inside the breakroom were a couple sets of tables and chairs, cupboards, two fridges and two vending machines.

Donnie hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. With the power out he couldn’t use the vending machines. He thought about breaking them open but in spite of having much bigger problems outside their office was still undamaged and Donnie didn’t want to have to explain the mess. Instead he checked the fridge and the cupboards. Whether he could explain breaking into the vending machines, Donnie figured the disaster justified a few pilfered lunches, names written on them or not. Although the power had been out for what must have been about twelve hours the fridge was still cool. There were several boxes of cereal in one of the cupboards. Donnie mixed some cereal in a bowl with yoghurt and ate it hungrily. He took stock of how much he had to drink. Donnie lined up a bunch of bottles of water from the fridges on the table in front of him. They were different sizes, mostly plastic, a couple of metal ones. He ignored the soft drinks for now, knowing they could just make him more thirsty.

Remembering the radio, Donnie returned to the cubicle where he had left it last night. It was his only source of information. Switching it back on, he found the frequency he’d been listening to last night was dead. Donnie scrolled through the dial until he heard a faint voice through a snowstorm of static.

“-affected areas, rescue could be days away. The damage is too widespread,” the radio said.

“Days? I can’t wait days! Alessa can’t wait days,” Donnie said.

“If you are currently safe where you are, authorities are saying to remain in place. Do not enter or come into contact with the water if you can. Disease is almost certain to be the biggest killer in the coming days.”

Donnie ignored the ongoing broadcast, pacing. He moved back to the windows and peered across the city. There should have been helicopters or boats, he decided, to start the rescue, but he couldn’t see any of that kind of movement. He might be safe but he had no idea what things were like for Alessa. A plan came suddenly to Donnie.

There was a mall nearby, about a block down the street from Donnie’s building. He went there from time to time, to the food court or to pick up random things. On the upper floor was a camping and sporting goods store which he was sure had kayaks. There was also a department store that might have canoes or inflatable boats. If he could make it as far as the mall, he could get a boat of his own. Something that might carry him all the way home.

“Am I crazy?” Donnie said to himself. “God, so many people are dead, they’ve got to be, and Alessa must be alright. The flood-, the flood can’t last that long but, what if the baby comes? I don’t know, I’d have to be insane but, if I could make it?”

Guilt played heavily into Donnie’s thoughts. If he’d left when he should have done last night, he figured he’d be home with Alessa right now. Although with the traffic, maybe he’d have gotten stuck somewhere less safe than this. He didn’t know anything of Jason’s fate, of course. There was also a sense of adventure to it. He tried to stifle it, knowing he was going to see a lot of death and destruction, and would be in real danger. Still, he couldn’t help but imagine how heroic he would look if he could get to Alessa across the tsunami-swept city. It was the kind of thing they wrote books and made movies about.

First, Donnie walked up the stairs to the upper levels of the building. Heroic or not, it would be stupid not to make sure there was absolutely no chance of rescue first. Different businesses made up the levels above Donnie’s office. Some were closed off and some had open offices he could wander straight into, like his own.

“Hello? Is anyone in here?” Donnie shouted.

On the top floor, Donnie wandered between conference rooms and offices. It was dimly lit. Big, closed offices took up most of the outer ring of the level so there was no natural light to compensate for the fact there was no power. Donnie looked to see if he could find any obvious access to the roof but there wasn’t one in the stairwell or in the offices. Hunting around, he searched for a maintenance hatch or something but it wasn’t as if the building had its own helipad people needed to regularly access. Looking down at the city, rain continued to fall and the flood hadn’t shrunk.

Donnie returned downstairs and went back to his office’s breakroom. He emptied out his laptop bag so he had room to stock it with water bottles and food. He left the vending machines intact, he wouldn’t have had any room to bring anything with him even if he busted one open.

Moving further downstairs, toward the water, Donnie thought about how he’d get to the mall, if that really was his plan. He’d have to find something that would float and something to row with. He poked his head in on random floors, shouting.

“Is anyone there? Hello?” Donnie shouted.

“Hello? We’re in here!” a voice actually called back.

Donnie was surprised to hear another person’s voice. It sounded like a woman. He found himself outside the reception area of a law firm, the walls covered in baroque wooden panels. Having only just poked his head in, Donnie walked inside slowly. It was even darker than most of the other levels with no power.

Two women met Donnie in the main corridor. Both were wearing suit dresses, crumpled from being slept in. One was older, in her fifties, a small, skinny woman with hard features. The other was younger than Donnie, a statuesque, dark skinned woman in her early twenties.

“Are you here to rescue us?” the younger woman, the voice who had shouted back, asked.

Donnie looked down at himself, well aware he didn’t look like a rescue worker. He was still wearing his rumpled suit and pale green shirt, the satchel hanging off his shoulder. The older woman was already shaking her head.

“No, I’m just-, I work upstairs, I was seeing if there was anyone else in the building,” Donnie said. “I’m Donnie, Donnie Rothchild.”

“I’m Peggy Travers, this is my associate, Kellie,” the older woman said. “We were here last night working on a brief. Trying to work, of course, until what happened outside occurred.”

“Do you know what happened? Our phones, internet, aren’t working,” Kellie said.

“Not really, there was a radio up in my office but it didn’t really give me any info, just that they said rescue could be days away. But I don’t think they knew what had caused it.”

“Days away? Oh, my God,” Kellie said.

“Did they say how extensive it was?” Peggy asked.

“It’s bad, I don’t know much more than that,” Donnie said. “The wave swept miles inland, thousands dead. I mean, thousands is probably a low estimate.”

“Oh, my God,” Kellie repeated.

“I’m sorry, did you-, did you have family and stuff to worry about?”

“No, not exactly,” Peggy said.

Kellie shook her head, crying. “My girlfriend is halfway across the country visiting her family,” she said. “But still, I can’t-, can’t get word to her to tell her that I’m okay.”

Donnie looked awkward, disappointed the two of them had even less news than he did. Kellie swiped at her face, trying to hold back on tears.

“You look like you’re going somewhere?” Peggy said.

“Uh, yeah, I was going to try to leave,” Donnie said.

“How? The streets are completely flooded, the water is at least two stories high. The lobby and lower floors will be flooded as well,” Peggy said. “You could kill yourself.”

“I know, but my wife is pregnant, eight months along. I should have gone home to her last night, now she could be-, I don’t know, but she’s alone. My plan was, I was going to make it over to that mall just down the street, you know? I just need something that can float to get me there, then, there’s a camping store in that building. If I can get a proper boat there, a canoe, I could paddle out to where my apartment building is.”

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“Surely, if we wait, the water will drain back out to sea.”

“I assume so, but if it was just the tidal wave, shouldn’t it have done so already?” Donnie said. “It’s right there in the name, it’s meant to be a tide, and yet the whole city is flooded and it hasn’t gone anywhere all night. It’s still raining out there and it doesn’t look like the flood is going down.”

“I understand, if she’s eight months pregnant, and the stress of something like this-,” Kellie said, and trailed off.

“Exactly, it might even be faster, getting a boat to travel out to her might be faster than walking out over whatever’s left once the water leaves,” Donnie said.

Peggy nodded slowly. “Alright, if you’re just looking for something that will float a few hundred metres, we might be able to help.”

~~~

Although Donnie hadn’t been able to see any movement, and the radio had reported official rescue being days away, there were all kinds of unofficial rescues going on around the outskirts of the disaster zone. Civilian boats shuttled people back and forth from where they’d ended up stranded on hillocks and rooftops. The flood extended for miles and miles and miles inland, however. Civilian aircraft also helped with the effort but the rain and unpredictable winds caused them a lot of problems. One helicopter had already been downed with four people on board, all of them lost. Debris and the sheer numbers of people in trouble had kept rescuers from moving too deep toward the city throughout the night and into the morning.

Mike Morgan and his pals, Tony and Zed, could have been part of those performing the rescue ops. He was behind the wheel of his thirty foot fishing boat, which had been far enough upriver from the coast to remain undamaged. Never let a good crisis go to waste though, Mike had heard somewhere. The boat, ‘Struck Lucky’, had been bought with the profits of criminal enterprise. Heists, shakedowns, and smuggling drugs had made Mike and the others wealthy men. But there were still house and car payments to be made, the latest electronics and toys to buy, and kids needed college funds. After word of the tsunami last night, Mike, Tony and Zed jumped into action with a plan.

Mike steered the Struck Lucky downriver via one bloated waterway, debris and strange currents making the journey treacherous. Eventually, a fallen bridge made the river impassable. By then, however, Mike could pull off the river and sail over where the shoreline would have been, moving over parks and streets covered in deep floodwaters. He had to watch for trees and structures under the water, as well as bodies and debris floating on the surface. A map of the city as it should have appeared, unflooded, flapped on the table beside Mike. Various locations were marked with bright red dots, their GPS coordinates written on the map in red as well in case they were difficult to pinpoint.

The Struck Lucky was even more difficult to manoeuvre among the flooded streets and avenues. Mike had to run the engine at a crawl, with one hand on the stick ready to slam them into neutral the second he was worried they’d gotten tangled by a floating corpse or some trash. The bodies meant nothing more to him than another obstacle, and he felt nothing as the occasional one thumped off the hull. Rain fell steadily, coating the windshield.

There weren’t just people in the water, of course. Survivors stood on the rooftops or on balconies of many buildings that they passed, waving and shouting at Mike to stop. Tony and Zed were on the back deck in wet weather gear, faces partially hidden by high collars and hats. They waved apologetically at individuals and groups as they passed by. Most got the message intended, a lie, that those on the boat would love to help but they clearly had somewhere they needed to be. Only a few refugees, in desperate need due to medical emergencies or shelter on the verge of collapse, continued to signal and scream until the boat was out of sight.

Fortunately, their first stop was on a street that would have been basically abandoned last night when the tsunami hit. The rooftops and upper levels of the surrounding buildings were the only parts above water but there were no witnesses occupying them and calling for help. Garbage and oil created a thick film on the water’s surface. Mike pulled up slowly against one of the buildings and turned the engine off. Tony cast a small anchor up on the edge of the nearest roof and tied the boat off.

“Are you ready to go?” Mike asked.

The Struck Lucky had a spacious cabin and narrow back deck. A small door in the cabin, under where Mike had been steering, led to cramped rooms below deck. The structure of the boat was sleek, wet, white and navy. A bright orange inflatable raft was mounted to the back of the boat near the twin engines in case they got stranded with the bigger boat.

Mike was a fit, well-muscled man with pale blonde hair that he slicked back from his temples. Inside the cabin he’d been wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans but he pulled on a rain slicker as he stepped onto the back deck. Tony was stockier and swarthier than Mike. Zed was considerably taller than the other two, with a thick, brown beard. He stood up, stripping off his dark blue coat. Underneath he was wearing a black diving suit that clung to his broad chest. Zed, luckily, was an experienced swimmer and diver, not a professional but good enough for their purposes. Seated on the side of the deck, Zed pulled a pair of dive slippers over his feet.

“Good to go, brother, smash and grab,” Zed said. “One long, slow tug on the rope, I’m in and I’m okay. Two short, quick tugs, you need to pull me up as quick as you can.”

Zed belted a tank of oxygen onto his back and tested it. Rubbing Vaseline over his moustache so his mask would seal properly, he pulled the rubber strap of the mask over his head. A rope coiled across the wet deck. Zed tied one end through the straps on his chest.

“I got you.” Tony picked up the coils of rope. “Let’s do this.”

Seated against the side of the boat, Zed looked to make sure he wasn’t going to hit his head on anything and then slipped backward. His flippered feet were thrown into the air. Entering the water with a splash, Zed found himself in a strange world of silence, flooded, broken buildings and streets littered with rubble. He couldn’t see too far in the dark water. Zed pumped his legs, rope trailing behind him, and dived deeper.

Rain drummed the surface. The shadow of the Struck Lucky loomed directly above Zed. Cold seeped through his suit, the water was freezing, but his muscles started to warm as he used his arms and legs. For a few moments, the big man couldn’t help but marvel at his surroundings. Scattered cars, some thrown sideways or tipped over, covered the road beneath him, but were covered in several metres of water. Buildings lining the street were mostly intact except for their doors and windows but it was so strange to see them underwater and surrounded by floating debris. Zed couldn’t see more than a quarter of a block in any direction. The water was filthy and filled with trash and destruction. Halfway down the street, a human corpse drifted as if hanging in midair, tangled in some wreckage that weighed its legs. Its arms drifted free and gave the body a crucified appearance. Zed could just make out their bloated face and it looked like the corpse was staring back at him. He quickly turned away and went about his business.

Besides his weight belt, Zed’s waist bristled with strange tools. Whatever the guys had thought they might need on this job. Scuba mask sealed against his face, he breathed evenly to make sure he didn’t get claustrophobic.

Something swirled through the water, disrupting debris. The vertically floating corpse, arms splayed, rocked in place. Sensing the motion, Zed struggled to turn his head but it was difficult with his neoprene hood and tank. By the time he turned, there was nothing there. He figured he was just spooking himself.

To either side of the jewellery store they were targeting were clothing shops. A wedding dress store and a high end clothes outlet. The windows at the front of both stores had been shattered and racks of expensive clothing twisted in the briny deep like seaweed. Zed ignored them and focused on the central store. A bus stop had been folded up and driven into the front of the jeweller. That was good, Zed thought, the wreckage was in the way but it had already damaged the reinforced glass and entryway so he could get inside. Zed slipped a short, flat-headed crowbar out of his belt and went to clear an opening.

Above, in the boat, Tony fed rope into the water so that Zed had plenty of slack. Mike scanned the sky and surrounding buildings. The rain wasn’t too heavy now. No sign of rescue helicopters or any other aircraft though. He couldn’t see prying eyes in any of the nearby windows either. If found by authorities, their plan was to say they’d come into the city to help people. The loot they would hide in the bottom of the boat but if they were really under threat they could dump it over the side in a weighted dive bag, mark off the location where they’d done so, and return when the water receded but before cleanup happened. Mike wasn’t sure how long they had before the water levels started dropping or rescue operations went into swing, which was why they’d jumped on the opportunity. But the spots marked on their map were all places they had cased, that would have plenty of loot that wouldn’t have been ruined by the flood and would be relatively easy to access. The jewellery store was just their first stop.

“No sign of anyone yet, police, the army,” Mike said. “Whole city might as well be open for business.”

“They’re going to be going over insurance and shit for years after this, ain’t no one going to be able to investigate everything that goes missing,” Tony added. “We’re just getting in early, so much shit’s going to be gone or written off once the water goes down.”

“Just wish this fucking rain would stop, but maybe it’s a good thing. Keeping them out of the air.”

Below, Zed cleared enough of a gap around the broken window to move through. He knocked away some clinging shards of reinforced glass and watched them drift to the ground. No alarms to worry about now. Zed made sure there was enough of a gap for him to turn around safely and so his tank filled with a mix of oxygen and nitrogen didn’t catch on anything. Switching on a dive light attached to his chest straps, Zed paddled inside.

Despite the smashed front window, the jewellery store was mostly intact although of course it was completely flooded. Only a couple of shelves have been knocked over. Zed turned and his dive light glittered off various rings, necklaces and bracelets, hundreds of them, in the display cases that ringed around the room. Grinning through his mask, Zed turned and gave his rope a long, deliberate pull.

Above, Tony felt the slack of the rope taken up. He turned, signalling Mike.

“He’s in,” Tony said.

“Great, we want to hit as many of these places as we can.”

The rain and wind picked up again, splattering the two men. The sky was already a solid slate grey but it darkened, burying the sun further.

Zed carried a specialised hammer made for breaking windows, with a bright orange handle that looped over his knuckles. The head came to a small, dense point. Hammers like it were usually kept in cars and other vehicles as an emergency tool for busting windshields and windows. Building up the momentum to swing a normal hammer would be too difficult underwater. He punched it into the top of one display cabinet. The glass collapsed silently, a few stray bubbles bobbing out of the broken countertop and darting toward the ceiling. Zed’s gloved hands sifted through the glass, sorting out the jewellery. He stuffed precious metals and gems into an unzipped dive bag attached to his waist. Behind the mask, Zed’s eyes were wide with excitement.

A man-sized shape filled the opening Zed had created in the front window. Swarms of tentacles moved in all directions around it. As Zed moved on to a second cabinet the creature squirmed inside. Its multitude of tentacles folded in on themselves easily.

Zed was fixated on the display cabinets, raking through them for precious jewels. He felt motion in the water behind him. The current swirled through the room and he turned, slowly and awkwardly. As he did, his eyes widened. Spread out, the creature that had snuck in behind him seemed to fill the whole room from floor to ceiling. Zed flailed backward, crashing into one of the broken cabinets. His dive light captured a face. Something from a nightmare. Something almost demonic.

The creature lashed out, one tentacle hooking around the tube of Zed’s scuba tank. It ripped the mouthpiece out of his mouth. Bubbles streamed out of the tube and then from the tank as well as the creature ripped it free. Zed thrashed around wildly, panicked. He dropped his hammer and groped to find the mouthpiece of his tank, not realising it had been torn away. He managed to wrap one hand around the rope tied to his scuba straps. Unthinking, he yanked at it hard and repeatedly. He hadn’t inhaled any water yet but bubbles streamed out of his mouth and from the tank on his back. It didn’t help, however, as the creature billowed and enveloped the big man in its tentacles. Zed just got a glimpse of hard eyes, rows of them, and a vertical mouth lined with teeth. He screamed and his mask was pushed sideways, filling with water and blinding him.

“What the fuck?” Tony said, back in the boat.

The rope whipped through Tony’s hands. It was pulled hard several times and now taut, thrumming as it cut back and forth through the water. If they had been fishing, Tony would have assumed he had a big one on the line. The rope burned the skin of his palms as it kept pulling away.

“What is this?” Mike said.

“Zed, I think he’s in trouble!” Tony said.

Tony braced himself and pulled the rope. Two hard tugs were meant to be the signal to pull Zed up but there had been a lot more than just that. Tony was stocky but strong. Muscles bunched in his arms as he placed one boot against the side of the boat, wrapping the rope around both hands, and pulled. Tony couldn’t make it budge, it was like trying to pull up a cement block, and yet the rope still jerked around in his grip.

“Help me!” Tony said.

Mike broke out of his uncertainty. He ran and gathered up the coils of rope, winding them around his arms and pulling. The two men fought the weight of whatever was going on below, the deck seesawing underneath them with the effort. Suddenly, the rope snapped and both men were flung, sprawling, to the deck. Mike fell hard with Tony landing on top of him. Tony, automatically, kept reeling the rope in. The end came whipping out of the water, spraying droplets, and Tony yanked it into the boat. The rope was frayed, like it had been slashed with a blunt knife. Tony held it up, examining the tip for a moment.

“What the hell?” Tony said. “Zed!”

Tony clamoured to his feet and to the side of the boat. Nothing, except the omnipresent rain, disturbed the surface. Mike picked himself up slowly, clutching his chest.

“Zed? What happened, where are you?” Tony yelled.

Something hit the boat from underneath. The deck jolted sideways, tipping. Mike and Tony managed to keep their footing but Tony had to grab the side of the boat to keep from falling overboard. Everything went still again after the blow, the Struck Lucky slowly righting itself.

“What is-,” Tony started.

A mottled tentacle, blackish blue in colour, shot out of the water and looped around Tony’s neck. Before Tony could react, he was heaved off his feet. He let out a strangled cry as the tentacle pulled him into the water.

“Tony!” Mike yelled. “What the fuck?”

The water was too dirty to see anything clearly under the surface. Mike ran to the side and only got an impression of a dark, thrashing shape, maybe two. They disappeared too deep and Tony didn’t resurface. Rain drummed the water, making it even harder to see. After a few moments of silence, something hit the bottom of the boat again and caused it to rock. Mike stumbled away from the edge.

“What the fuck was that?” Mike said. “What the fuck-, the fuck?”

Something had killed Zed, that much seemed obvious. Then, all he had seen of it was that long tentacle, effortlessly pulling Tony into the water. Mike had no idea what it could be, couldn’t even conceive of what the danger was, and didn’t care. He had to stay away from the water’s edge. Mike wheeled back into the boat’s cabin. The map of places they’d been going to hit was still on the table by the controls, weighed down by coffee mugs. Mike reached under the table instead. Clipped to the underside of the tabletop was the holster for a short, black shotgun. Mike slid the Serbu Super Shorty out from under the table and racked the pump action. The shotgun was only one and a half foot long with a pistol grip and held three shells in the tube. Staying low, Mike aimed it vaguely at the doorway.

The boat rocked as something thumped and splashed. Mike listened intently, his body coiled and shaking. There was a slithering sound and a wet splat on the deck outside his open door. The danger wasn’t restricted to the water, Mike realised. It was on board the boat. He still didn’t know or care what it was, and didn’t waste energy thinking about it.

A tentacle slapped against the cabin doorway. Having seen how quick the creature was when it snared Tony, Mike jerked back and fired the shotgun. Shot cratered the wall by the open door. Mike’s wrists hurt from the recoil and the noise was deafening in the enclosed cabin. The creature withdrew, tentacles slapping the deck.

“Don’t you come in here! I’ll fucking kill you!” Mike yelled.

Mike jacked the shotgun and kept it pointed at the doorway. He could hear the creature moving around outside, hesitating. Assuming it was a dumb animal, Mike wondered if another shot might scare it off.

A spear of some kind shot through the open doorway. Silent, with perfect accuracy, it drilled Mike in the chest and the momentum threw him backward. Mike crashed into the controls, hitting his arm on the steering wheel. The shotgun, still in his hand, went off and blew open one of the porthole windows. The spiked head of the harpoon punched through Mike’s back and embedded itself into the controls. Mike was impaled on the dash.

“Oh, what the fuck-, what the fuck is that?” Mike said.

Groaning, Mike dropped the shotgun and groped at the shaft of the spear sticking out of his chest. Blood soaked through his shirt and poured down his body, wetting his crotch and legs. As the shock began to wear off, Mike felt a burning agony spreading through his body, rising and falling with every gasping breath and getting more solid and real with every passing moment.

A briny smell assaulted Mike’s nostrils, his senses seemingly heightened as shock drained away. The dark bulk of the creature that had attacked him filled the cabin doorway. In the frenzy, Mike hadn’t bothered to imagine what his attacker looked like, thinking of it only vaguely as a dangerous blur surrounded by tentacles. Now, faced with the creature, Mike tried to scream. Thanks to his bleeding chest wound, the scream came out as only pained, tea kettle squeaking, but the look of terror and confusion on Mike’s face was unmistakable. The creature moved across the room and fell on him.