“Oh god, we’d be the fish.” Jennifer giggled. “We’d be the tuna in a can.”
“I don’t think it’d even need to wait. It could rip the sub in half if it wanted to,” Alex said. Aimee looked back towards the vessel. “We use what we learned — this thing flees from heat, and we know it vanishes at the first hint of a cave-in. How can we use that?”
“We create a cave-in by pushing some of those boulders down on top of it.” Casey pointed. “Up there, that overhang should do fine.”
Hanging above the ships was a shelf of stone, hundreds of tons of dark rock, jutting out over the lake.
“No, too risky; we could crush the Sea Shadow,” Alex said. “But I like the idea of creating a cave-in and panicking it. We can simulate a collapse with an explosion.” He held up the grenades he took from the PLA soldiers. “At least we can give it an upset stomach.”
Cate raised her head to peer over the rock barrier at the lake. The mist was rising again. “All quiet, maybe it’s sated for now and gone back to its midden. That’s where it…”
As if in response, the water broke as a tentacle lifted from the water just in front of them. They hunkered down, but it wasn’t seeking the group. Instead, it gently unfurled at the mound of skulls, dropping another onto the top of the pile. This one was fresh, and with streaks of flesh still clinging to it. Another tentacle snaked from the water, and a similar skull was carefully placed beside it, and then rearranged, until the creature decided it was in its right place.
Alex could see the gigantic mass spreading below the water. The monstrous bulk just beneath the surface looked like a mottled green and black stain. Two car-sized unblinking discs watched its own handwork as it arranged and rearranged its toys. Satisfied at last, its tentacles eased back below the surface without a ripple and then the rubbery mass dove into deeper water, to digest its last meal or wait for more to come.
“I feel sick,” Jennifer said, sitting back down by Blake.
Alex held out one of the grenades. “Casey, you get one, and I’ll keep the other. On my word, you launch yours. Hopefully we won’t need two, but we don’t know what it’s going to take to scare this thing off.”
“Scare it off?” Jennifer giggled dementedly. “Did you see that fucking thing? It’s as big as a jumbo jet. And you think throwing a firecracker will scare it off.”
Jackson put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Jenn, I’m scared too. And you know if you get a firecracker in the eye, you’re gonna have one hell of a bad day.” He smiled and shook her shoulder. “So, good a plan as any, and if it leads to us getting out of here…”
Jennifer hugged herself tighter, lowering her head and moaning.
With the plans rapidly forming, Shenjung suddenly felt nervous about his place in the group. “Will you take us too?” He had an arm around a shivering Soong.
Alex turned, frowning. “Huh, what?”
“Will you take us on the submarine?” Shenjung asked again. “We can help… once onboard.”
“No one gets left behind,” Alex said. “But you need to keep up. This is a one-shot deal. If anyone falls behind or deviates, then no one is going back for anyone. Understand?”
Alex held his eyes, and Shenjung was sure he meant it when he said if they fell behind, he would leave them without blinking.
Alex turned away and sucked in a deep breath. “We go two-by-twos. Rhino, with me at lead, followed by Aimee and Cate, then Jackson and Jennifer, and then Soong and Shenjung — you are each responsible for your partner. Blake and Casey, you’re my bookend at the rear. You’ve got to have eyes in the back of your head; you ready?”
Casey grinned, holding the grenade in her fist. Muscles and veins bulged in her neck. “Let’s fucking do this.”
Jackson drew forth the jawbone axe he had tucked into his belt, hefting it. “Ready.”
“Not much of an arsenal,” Cate observed. “It’ll have to do.”
“We don’t need much,” said Aimee. “This thing sees humans as little more than food or something to play with. It hasn’t regarded us as a threat for perhaps centuries, and I’m betting it underestimates us. We will have the element of surprise.”
“We teach it a lesson… or at least give it damned good bellyache,” Rhino said, hitting Jackson on the shoulder.
“Ready?” Alex asked.
There were nods, and Shenjung felt his pulse start to race. He squeezed Soong’s hand, who looked up at him with an ashen face and round eyes. She nodded.
“Three, two…” Alex looked at each of them as he counted down. “Go!” He turned and leapt over the boulder and began to pick up speed.
They were about halfway to their destination, and to where the cliffs intruded close to the lake, forcing them all nearer to the oil-dark water. Tactically, Alex realized, if he was planning a sea-based ambush on his group, this is where it would come from.
Sure enough, he began to sense the creature, and looked to the lake’s misted surface. He knew down below, it was gliding closer, its excellent vision seeing the small bodies running along the water’s edge.
“Heads up,” he yelled, watching the water as he ran. He saw the mottled stain spreading beneath the surface. Luminous circles began to flare, and the creature’s body changed from green-black to a brick red, and then to a muddy brown, as he guessed the massive cephalopod’s chromataphores were firing, matching its excitement level. Why not? It was enjoying the game, Alex knew, especially as it got to eat its toys at the end.
The monstrous creature surged forward and Alex pulled the pin on the fragmentation grenade and threw it. “Fire in the hole!”
The group crouched, as the explosion thumped below the water, sending a geyser into the air. The lake erupted for hundreds of feet as the creature shot away from the bank so fast it left a huge whirlpool eddy on the surface.
“It’s working,” Aimee said, and the group began to increase their pace.
A bow wave raced around the farthest side of the lake, five feet high. It was like the wave given off by the bow of an ocean liner, except the huge moving object wasn’t above the water, but below. The wave turned when it was about half a mile away, coming back towards them for a few hundred feet, before slowing over the deeper water.
“Gone deep,” Cate yelled. “I think we did it.”
“Nope; it’s coming back. Faster,” Alex shouted. “Franks, you’re up.”
Casey fingered the pin on her grenade, but held it. “I got nothing back here.”
“Shit.” Jackson started to run harder, dragging Jennifer with him.
When they were only two hundred feet from the sub, the wave rose again in the middle of the lake, and then between them and the first of the ships, the thing exploded from the water, beaching itself, and dwarfing the ships behind it. The creature continued to boil from the water, coiling and tangling like a handful of monstrous worms knotting and crawling over each other. The acrid smell was overpowering. Suddenly, the idea that a single remaining grenade would send it packing seemed a hideous joke.
“Franks!” Alex yelled.
The female HAWC sprinted forward, her arm raised.
A tentacle shot towards the group, and Alex lifted his pitiful Ka-bar blade. But the club moved past him, choosing a different target.
Jackson saw the coming appendage and pushed Jennifer to the ground. “Shut your eyes.” He moved to the side, drawing its attention and lifting his makeshift axe, swinging with all his might, striking the rubbery mass, and opening a foot long gash in its flesh. Purple blood splashed the rocks.