“Now, that was cool,” Sandy commented.
“Your pals don’t think so,” Lagrasse grumbled. The researchers were crying and praying as the last of the giants settled noisily on the basalt slope.
Lagrasse approached the nearest gigantic crushed V of a cruise-ship hull, investigating the grotesque clots of mush and gore that seemed to be hanging from every protrusion on the ship, at and below the water level. One big clot dangled on a side of the hull that was now raised twenty feet into the air, and a strand of tissue separated. The clot fell and landed with a thump.
It was a squid, bigger than any squid Lagrasse had ever seen. It had to be one of those giants that were found in the stomachs of whales.
He inspected the pulpy remnants that clung to the hull. There was even a mass of them shoved into the cage around the main props. The creatures had sacrificed themselves to disable the ship.
Lagrasse felt a curious satisfaction. This was as it should be.
The team of cryptozoologists helped the survivors free themselves of the grounded ships, and the population of the island ballooned. Soon there were hundreds of able-bodied men and women joining in the rescue effort. They told stories that couldn’t be believed—about giant squid that attacked as a group to disable the ships.
“It couldn’t have been deliberate,” Williamson protested to one of the cruise-ship captains.
“It was,” the man said. “I’m not saying they came up with the plan on their own, mind you. I bet it was people controlling them with subsurface ultrasound or something. Maybe a new kind of terrorist threat.”
“We’re a few days too late to discover these,” Goodall said, nudging a squid carcass with his foot. “They just displayed a Colossal in Chicago.”
Lagrasse overheard the comment, and he found his opening. “That? That’s nothing.”
Goodall and Williamson looked at him.
“You want a big octopus, I can show you one ten times as big as that.”
“It’s a squid,” Williamson pointed out.
“The one I’m talking about is an octopus, kind of. I think it has eight arms, anyway, but its head has wings like a squid.”
“You sure you didn’t hallucinate it?” Williamson asked.
Lagrasse knew the man didn’t like him. “Ask Sandy. She’s seen it. You wanna know the strangest part? It’s amphibious.”
“Ridiculous!” Williamson said.
“Lives in a shallow water pool in the center of the island.”
“That’s absurd!”
Lagrasse shrugged. “Want to see it for yourself?” They followed Lagrasse inland. A constant trickle of cruise-ship survivors was already heading for the three-sided pyramid, lured by the song in their heads. The cryptozoologists questioned the marchers, but the answers they received were vague. The closer they came to the pyramid, the less communicative the marchers became.
“They’re like zombies,” Missy Juk said, adjusting the straps of her supply pack.
Mick Chad didn’t answer.
When they reached the lip of the courtyard, they found the stream of silent human beings filing into the pyramid. There was a silent queue of a hundred people waiting to enter. Above their heads the bones were ejected, tossed by the tentacle of something that was out of sight inside. A hill of human bones and skulls had collected against the base of the pyramid and formed an entrance ramp.
They were stunned into silence until Missy Juk began crying for help.
“It’s Mick! He’s going in!”
They bustled after Mick Chad, who was heading for the pyramid without noticing Missy dragging on his arm. The researchers huddled around the hovercraft pilot and brought him to a standstill. Mick didn’t even look at them. It was as if his mind were already dead.
Something like a growl came from inside. The queued victims waiting to get inside the pyramid turned on the research team and wordlessly grabbed at them. The researchers were outnumbered twenty to one, and they were battered with fists until they became pliant—then they were pulled into the pyramid.
Melissa Juk felt the compacted human bones under her bare feet. She felt the iron grip of Mick Chad on her wrist. She was going to die and she was helpless to stop it. Her head was ringing from the beating and her vision was tunneling.
It occurred to her she was still naked. What a cinematic way to die! A naked young college girl with great boobs gets hauled into the mouth of the monster. If they ever made a movie of this, it would be spectacular.
“There it is, God,” she heard Dr. Williamson wheeze as they were pulled inside the pyramid to face the leviathan.
“A creature no man has ever seen before,” Goodall agreed from bloody lips.
“I suppose you’ll be retiring now,” Dr. Williamson slurred.
Goodall didn’t answer. He was constricted in the tentacles of the thing and lifted skyward. Williamson went next, then a few of the other researchers. Finally it was Missy’s turn. The tentacles took her. The suckers were painful against her skin. She saw the beak come closer until it was as big as a VW Beetle.
In she went.
Missy Juk felt her mind being eviscerated. A little strand of something was being absorbed from her brain and she suffered incredible agony for a long, long half minute. Then, with a sloppy crunch, all agony ended.
Lagrasse observed as the two older men and the naked college girl were dragged into the pyramid. He felt satisfaction and pride. He had done a good job. And the thing in the pyramid was pleased. And it was eating better than ever.
That was just the beginning. The other survivors began to respond to the same invisible lure. There was a perpetual train of human beings marching from the shore to the pyramid. Lagrasse monitored the progress from his rooftop lookout.
Sandy joined him there in the early evening, looking tousled. He knew what she had been doing, and he didn’t care. “It’s not feeding anymore,” he explained worriedly.
“He’s full,” she said.
“No. It’s the people. They’re not right. The ones who responded early were good, but the rest of them are not correct,” he said.
Sandy watched the thing in the pyramid scoop up human beings in one tentacle after another and bring them to its massive beak. It was tasting them.
But they must have tasted bad. They were released and they dropped into the pool of algae-thickened water. Some of them struggled then, as if some of their free will was restored by the fall. A few tried to scale the slime-coated walls of the pool, but other tentacles emerged to drag them down.
“What can you do?” Sandy said with a shrug. “Come on.” She took his hand and pulled him onto the rooftop, where they did their favorite thing, although Lagrasse for once found it hard to enjoy himself.
Chapter 43
He was dreaming of being ten years old.
“You did it, boy!”
It was his dad, standing on the far side of the Crying River, where the brook evaporated to leave a thin crust of sand in the dry months. Walking on it made a sound like walking on potato chips, but in ancient days they came up with a more poetic comparison. They said it sounded like maidens crying, so it became the Crying River.
Crossing it without making it cry was something that only Remo’s people could do. Remo’s heart swelled. His father sounded so happy at what Remo had done.
“Come on home now, son,” called Sunny Joe Roam. He waved to Remo. “Your mother is waiting. Come home.”
Remo wanted nothing more than to go home and be with his proud father and his mother. He hadn’t seen her in so long. He missed her so much. Yes, go home, now—be with them.
“I’m going home.” That’s what he was saying as he woke up.