Return to The Deep (From The Deep Book 2) (9 page)

"I saw it! I was right there!" Jim screamed.

“Where the hell did he get a gun?”

“How the fuck should I know? All I can tell you is he had one, and shot a guy with it.”

“Holy shit,” Fernando said, then turned to his brother, “what do we do now?”

"Let’s get out of here. We need to lay low and figure this out," Tom said.

"Where the hell are we supposed to go?"

"Anywhere, just away from here before the police arrive."

“What about Clayton?” Fernando said.

The three of them looked down into the cab.

“We can’t do anything for him now. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here,” Tom replied.

CHAPTER NINE

Forty minutes after the truck had first slewed into the ocean, Andrews strode towards the barricaded section of beach, pushing past the crowd that had gathered in huge numbers to gawp at the spectacle. He flashed his ID at the guard on at the barrier and was granted access. Gus Freeman waddled towards him, wiping sweat from his brow.

"What the hell happened here, Gus?"

"Bunch of animal rights nuts hijacked the truck and drove it into the water."

"Fuck. Greenpeace?" Andrews snapped as they walked away from the eavesdropping crowd.

"Not this time. Bunch of teenagers by the looks of things. Driver drowned in the cab. The others managed to get away. We’re taking statements from witnesses, but everyone was so preoccupied with what was happening, it’s not much use trying to get any description."

"I thought the driver was shot?" Andrews said as they strode towards the surf.

"He was. I meant the guy who took over the vehicle."

“Any ID on him?”

“Drivers licence in his wallet. Clayton Sanders, just turned seventeen.”

“Family?” Andrews asked.

“We’re trying to get them. Parents are divorced. His mother lives in Portland. We’re trying to get the father at his office.”

"Did anyone see anything?"

"No," Freeman said, wiping his forearm against his head. He was struggling to keep pace with Andrews, almost having to run to match his stride. "In a way, it was lucky the trailer went over on its side. Blocked the, uh, cargo from view. People are assuming it was a whale."

"That's one positive at least. Goddamnit, Gus, this is the last thing I needed. Please tell me the tracker is still implanted into the creature."

"Uh, I’m not sure, sir. As far as I know it is.”

"Jesus Christ, what the hell are we going to do?" Andrews said, staring at the overturned truck and the army of government officials in black wetsuits, which were swarming all over it. Up above, news helicopters hovered like angry flies.

"How many were involved?"

"Not exactly sure, sir," Freeman stammered. "Witnesses say there was either one or two in the truck and another two or three clearing the way for it to get onto the beach. As I said, most of them were preoccupied with gawping at the scene."

"In other words, we don’t know?"

"Unfortunately, that seems to be the case," Freeman muttered.

"I want them found."

"We can deploy local law enforcement, sir, they will-"

"No," Andrews interjected, "no police. We can’t risk this getting out into the public, not yet anyway."

“What should we do, sir?”

“Go round the witnesses again, see if anyone has video of it. Every man and his dog have a camera phone these days. Surely to God, someone got a video or a photograph of these people.”

"Yes sir,” Freeman said, then cleared this throat. “Uh, sir, Commander Tomlinson has called twice for you, now demanding you get in contact with him."

"I will, just as soon as I have something to tell him," Andrews snapped. “First off, I want this scene cleared up. Last thing we want is a crowd of people speculating as to what's happened. Leak the story that it was a blue whale transfer that was intercepted by animal rights activists. Put the dead kid's picture on the news. Make sure he's linked to killing the driver of the truck, and ask   anyone who knows him to get in contact. Someone, somewhere, will crawl out of the woodwork, and for the love of God, get those damn news choppers out of the air.”

"And what about the, uh, other problem," Freeman said, nodding towards the open water.

"Leave that with me. Do you have a phone on you? I left mine at the aquarium."

Freeman handed Andrews his phone.

"Thanks," Andrews said as he decided it was better to deal with Tomlinson sooner rather than later.

He punched in the commander’s number, surprised when rather than his secretary, Tomlinson himself answered on the second ring.

"You better have good news for me, Andrews," the commander snapped.

"Actually, I don’t. I have control of the situation here, but unfortunately, our cargo is missing."

"Are you telling me our multi-million dollar mission has been derailed by a bunch of kids?" Tomlinson screamed.

"Please, calm down, sir, it’s under-"

"Don’t you tell me to calm down. Have you any idea how serious this is?"

"All due respect, sir, I do. I was there the first time, up close and personal with this things mother in Antarctica," Andrews snapped.

"Well then, you know what's at stake. Out at sea this thing can grow to adulthood. The last thing we need is another three hundred foot fucking problem swimming around in our oceans."

"I'll track it down. You have my word."

"You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was Rainwater and Thompson who were responsible for this."

"Doubtful, sir, they have little contact anymore. They've moved on."

"That's an assumption at best. Bring them in. Question them."

"Sir, wouldn’t our resources be better used in finding the creature?"

"For someone who has spent the last five years misappropriating government funds, you are in
no
position to talk about resources. Bring them in and do it now. Then get out there and kill this fish."

"Kill it, sir? Don’t you mean capture it?"

"No, I want it killed. Project Blue is officially terminated."

"But, sir-"

"Don’t say another word, Andrews. You're clinging onto your job by the skin of your teeth. Think very carefully before you speak again."

Andrews pushed his anger aside and took a deep breath. "Yes sir. I’ll get right to work."

"You better. This project has been one screw up after the other. Fix it, do it now and you might just save your job."

The line clicked off in Andrews's ear. He handed the phone back to Freeman and walked to the water’s edge, staring out to sea. For the first time in five years, he felt genuine fear gnawing at his gut.

CHAPTER TEN

Thought at one time to be a creature of myth and legend, the forty three foot colossal squid moved north, planning to feed on the edge of the Antarctic Ocean waters, which were its natural habitat. The squid propelled itself deeper, using its arrow shaped tail to dive to three thousand feet in its quest for food. Armed with suckers on its tentacles, which were ringed with tiny teeth, the colossal squid was also equipped with sharp barbed hooks on its limbs, which made it a ferocious predator.

A half mile away, the near hundred foot long creature circled, weighing up its potential prey. Conditioned by a life of routine and regular feeding times, the creature was struggling to adapt to its newfound freedom. Its senses were inundated with information sent to it by the abundance of life within the oceans. It had already feasted on a giant sea turtle, and was now eager to feed again. Sensing the squid’s depth adjustment, the creature followed suit, delving deeper into the icy waters and keeping a respectful distance. Due to the network of nerves running over and under the creature’s snout, it was able to read the ocean, detecting the electrical impulse of its potential prey from miles away. The sheer darkness of the deep waters was nothing but a minor inconvenience for the creature, as it halved the distance between itself and the slow moving squid.

Powerless to outrun its pursuer, the squid was left with no option but to face its attacker head on. In addition to its barbed appendages, the squid was equipped with a razor sharp beak, which was an impressive eleven inches in length and enough to make most predators think twice. However, it had never encountered anything like this particular type of creature, whose own set of forty eight, fifteen inch, backward facing serrated teeth were more than a match for any defence the squid would be able to muster.

The creature flicked its massive fluke, tentacles at its side to achieve maximum efficiency as it powered through the water. The squid, realising it was hopelessly outmatched, started to dive, hoping that by descending to colder waters, its attacker would give up the chase. Undaunted and driven by its lust to feed, the creature followed, its genetic makeup meaning that although cold, the waters in which the squid dived were nowhere even close to the usual Antarctic waters, which made up the creatures natural habitat.

Closing to within eight feet of the fleeing squid, the creature burst forward, ten foot wide jaws clamping onto the squid and tearing it in half. The creature quivered as it devoured the lower half of the squid, automatically reaching out with its tentacles to grab at the front half of the creature that was starting to sink towards the bottom. Finishing its meal, the creature pulled the upper half towards it gaping maw, quickly devouring the remains. Hovering for a moment in five thousand feet of water, the creature picked up on another signal, a series of vibrations, which instinct told it meant a creature in distress. With a flick of its giant fluke, it was on the move, looking for another opportunity to satisfy its perpetual hunger.

II

The motel was a seedy, grimy place where questions weren’t asked about the nature of the stay, as long as money was paid up front. The walls were paper thin and the decor grubby, but it was private. Jim, Fernando and Tom sat in the room, perched on the edge of the two double beds and watching the television coverage of their antics. Marie was sitting against the wall, knees pulled up to her chin and not speaking to anyone. She had been the same ever since they fled the beach. The others watched the coverage as it showed footage of the truck driver’s body by the roadside, covered by a sheet as the report stated the gunman had been found dead on the scene at the beach.

"This is fucked up, man," Tom said, his voice wavering. "They're going to find us."

"Nobody knows who we are, just relax." Jim said, surprised how calm he felt considering everything that had happened.

"Why the hell would he do this? Where the fuck did he get the gun from?" Tom replied, standing and pacing the room.

"You need to calm down, man," Jim said. "As for the gun, I didn’t know he had it till he shot the guy."

"And you didn’t think to stop him?"

"Hey, what could I do? He wouldn’t listen. No way am I taking on someone who just shot a guy."

"It's not Jim’s fault," Fernando said to his brother. "We need to stick together. I think we can all agree this is all fucked up."

"This is gonna end bad for us. Don’t you get it?" Tom said. "It won’t take them long to ID Clayton. From there, how long do you think it's gonna take for them to find out who his friends were? We can’t hide from this."

Although he didn’t show it outwardly, a surge of panic raced through Jim. He wondered if it were true, if the police could find them so quickly, and if so, could they prove it was he who was guilty and not Clayton. For the first time, it dawned on him that he was responsible for the deaths of two people.

"You okay?" Fernando said, snapping Jim back to the present.

"Yeah, I’m fine. Still in shock I think," he mumbled, turning back towards the television.

Tom sat next to his brother, elbows on knees, head hanging low. "What the hell are we going to do?" he whispered.

Fernando was spared from having to answer by the knock at the door. Jim and Fernando shot worried glances to each other as Tom stood.

"Relax, it's just Joanne. I asked her to bring us some stuff."

Tom opened the door and let his girlfriend in. She handed over a rucksack.

"There's the stuff you asked for. Change of clothes and some money," she said as she closed the door. "What the hell happened? I couldn’t get away from the aquarium. They locked the place down tight after word got out of what you’d done."

"It all went wrong, Clayton had a gun, and he shot the driver of the truck."

"Clayton? That can’t be," Joanne said, looking straight at Jim.

My God, she knows.

"That's what happened," Jim said. "Maybe we didn’t know him as well as we thought."

"How did he die?" she asked, still staring at Jim.

"Well, they were trapped in the cab and-"

"I was asking Jim," Joanne said, cutting Fernando off.

Jim shifted position, looking anywhere but at Joanne. "Well, it’s like he said. We were stuck in the cab. He tried to climb out to get help and got his foot caught in the wheel. I held him up out of the water for as long as I could, but that thing in the back kept moving and pulling the trailer deeper. He drowned. There was nothing I could do.”

"It’s true," Tom said, putting an arm around Joanne, "Fernando and me saw it, his foot was all mangled and twisted.”

“It all seems a little too easy.”

“Look, go easy on him. We've all had a big shock. Obviously, this has gotten out of hand. We need to decide what to do," Tom said, pacing the room from flimsy door to dirty bathroom and back.

"You're running aren’t you? That’s why you asked for the money," Joanne said.

"It's an option. There's a lot to be said for turning ourselves in. After all, we didn’t actually do anything wrong," Tom replied as he sat on the edge of the bed.

"We did a lot wrong," Fernando mumbled, "just look at the TV screen."

They looked at the images of police and officials swarming all over the beach scene.

"Jesus," Joanne mumbled, "this is crazy."

"We can’t give ourselves up," Jim blurted. He cleared his throat and went on. "What I mean is that they'll pin this on us as accessories."

"You sound like you have something to hide," Joanne said.

"No, not at all. I just think we should lay low for a while and see how things develop."

"Convenient."

"If you have a problem with me, then just spit it out," Jim snapped.

"Hey, everyone just calm down," Fernando said. "There's something else you need to know."

"Not now," Tom said, looking at his brother.

"They need to know."

"Not now, we can talk about it later."

"What is it?" Joanne said, looking from Fernando to Tom. "What are you both hiding?"

Fernando looked at his brother, and then shifted his gaze to Joanne. "Whatever we set free from that trailer, it wasn’t a whale."

"Enough of the monster stories!" Marie screamed. They all looked at her, tears streaming down her cheeks. "This is how this whole thing started, just shut up about it!"

"It's not a story," Tom said, "it's true."

"What do you mean?" Joanne asked.

"We were right there at the back. We were going to cut it loose before it dragged the trailer any deeper. Whatever it was, it was no whale."

"What did you see?"

"Not much. It was covered mostly and in its harness. Its body was like a greenish colour and it had tentacles."

"But it was huge," Jim said, "and heavy. No squid can grow that big can it?"

"No, it can’t," Tom replied. "The more I think about it, the surer I am that we've made a massive mistake in whatever it was."

"But what
was
it, Tom. You saw it, you must have
some
idea, "Joanne said.

"I don’t know what it was. All I know is that it's something I've never seen before."

Joanne looked at Tom, the troubled look in his eye unfamiliar to her. "Are you sayin’ those stories about something being held in there for the last five years could be true?"

"Yeah, I think so, and whatever it is, we just let it loose."

They were silent for a while, the only sound in the room coming from the television as the news recycled the same report from the beach. Jim stood and strode towards the door.

"Where the hell are you going?" Fernando said.

"I need a drink."

"You can’t just go out there now. Not with this-"

"What?" Jim said to Fernando. "Nobody has anything on us. Hell, for all we know, nobody is even looking for us."

"That's wishful thinking," Fernando muttered.

"Yeah," Joanne said, "who knows if you will even come back if you leave now."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jim hissed.

"You know what I mean. Everyone knows your history. Trouble with the police, a history of causing problems. I just don’t want you running out and leaving everyone else to get the blame.”

“You really think I’d do that?” Jim grunted.

“If the cap fits,” she fired back.

"Fuck you."

"Hey, don’t talk to her like that," Tom said, taking a step towards Jim.

"Sorry, man, but she's been niggling at me since she walked through the door. Say what you want, but if things are about to change and we have to spend the next couple of weeks hiding out, then I wanna enjoy this last little bit of freedom. The rest of you are welcome to stay here if you want to and watch this same old shit on the news, but I won’t do it. I'm gonna go find a bar and have a few drinks and toast my friend."

Nobody spoke as he walked past them and opened the door. One by one, they followed, deciding that maybe, just maybe, he was right.