Ben thought it might have been some sort of colossal whale ancestor but discarded that thought as he remembered mammals didn’t even exist yet. Then he saw flippers and a long reptilian flattened tail thrashing behind it as it brought itself up higher onto the rocks so its jaws could snap the more than thousand pounds of octopus from the breakwater.
With a muscular flip, the colossal body was gone with a massive surge wave that threw him against the rocks. He clung there, feeling stars pop in his head from shock.
Now he knew why the octopus wouldn’t go in the water, and also why the plesiosaurs had vanished. This thing must have been patrolling the shoreline. He looked back up to where the octopus had been, and he coughed water. Nothing remained. He turned back to the ocean.
Thanks, he whispered, and scrambled up onto the rocks, and then quickly over the breakwater to the lagoon side in case the great beast came back feeling like some human dessert.
He sunk down to sit, resting his back against the stone. He sucked in deep breaths, willing his heart rate to slow.
“How was your day at the office, dear?”
He started to laugh, but then a wave of nausea wracked him, and he began to shiver. Shock, he knew, and he screwed his eyes shut.
“Hold it together, buddy.” The sound of his own voice reassured him. “We’re still here,” he said softly. “Just you and me.”
He slowly opened his eyes and stared at the calm lagoon. It seemed like an oasis compared to the ocean now. And even better, the previous owner had just been violently evicted, so it was finally all his.
Ben contemplated spearing a fish now that the pool belonged to him, and he hefted his spear, but his hand shook so violently, he knew he’d never hit a thing.
He blew out a long breath and looked up toward his cave on the cliffs. The small flying pterosaurs darted in and out as if nothing had happened. His mouth pulled into a lopsided grin.
“Sorry, guys, looks like eggs are back on the menu after all.”
Ben watched from his cave mouth perch for many days, still shaken by the octopus attack. He saw the huge sea creature cruising up and down along the coast, its dark shape just visible when the sun was low, as the massive paddle-finned leviathan stayed just below the surface.
After a few days, it had vanished, and then in the next, the plesiosaurs were back.
“That’s a good sign,” he said, eyes still on the water.
Ben sucked in a deep breath and once again headed back down to his lagoon. He’d spent his time fashioning a long length of twine from a strong fibrous and elastic vine. At one end, he had carved a hook from a large seashell, and finding half a fish carcass on the tide line, had used it to bait his hook.
Ben swung it back and forth a few times, before tossing it out as far as the line let him. His goal wasn’t to catch fish, but to draw out any more lurking octopus. He trawled his bait for days but attracted nothing but fish bites.
It was as he hoped — from his diving days, he knew the big cephalopods were territorial and rarely tolerated their own kind; even mating was over in a matter of moments and then the males had to make a break for it to avoid being eaten by their paramour.
Ben lifted his chin and took in the sea air, swelling his chest and then letting it out slowly. He sucked in another one and this time, let it explode out as words.
“This lagoon is mine,” he shouted, and the cliff walls echoed it back at him in a chorus of agreement.
He felt the sun already hot on his chest and face, and he waded into the clear cool water, took one last look around, and dived.
He opened his eyes below the surface and was once again surprised how well he could see in the glass-clear water. Large fish came to check him out, and he picked at shells on the bottom, examining them, before surfacing and flicking back long hair. He wiped his face, blinking a few times, and couldn’t help the smile breaking out on his face. It was, invigorating.
He moved quickly back to the shallows and turned, feeling his neck tingle, and then he spun — nothing followed him. No large shadows crept forward to try and ambush him. No massive leviathans that were all teeth, or bulbous bags that flared red with plate-sized eyes and eight crushing arms, watched from the depths.
But schools of fish did. He waded up onto the sand and retrieved his spear, and the next time a silver torpedo closed in on the shallow water, he stabbed down, skewering it.
Ben wasted no time gutting and cleaning the fish, and then tossing the bloody remains into the shallows, where they were immediately gorged upon by the fish’s kin. He wanted them to get used to seeing him close by, and also used to thinking when they did see him, it meant feeding time rather than death.
Days passed. Ben felt his strength and good spirits returning with each moment of this idyllic life. Sunrises were clear, clean, and magnificent, and his personal lagoon was usually always replenished after the high tide let water gush through the breakwater that acted like teeth, allowing in the fish, but keeping out the larger predators.
After one particularly high full-moon king-tide, Ben awoke to see the recognizable fin of a shark cruising in his lagoon. The age-old creatures had been around for 400 million years, so he kind of expected he’d see one sooner or later.
From his lookout cave, he could see down into the lagoon, and judged the predator to be only about eight or nine feet in length. But it was squatter and more barrel-shaped than the streamlined modern sharks he knew and would have probably weighed in at about 500 pounds.
Though it was a big fish, Ben didn’t think it would be much of a problem. “I can share.” He nodded to the creature. “You stay in your side of the lagoon, and me in mine, and we’ll a-aaall be friends, okay?”
The sudden surge in the lagoon and a few seconds of thrashing that ended in bloody spray meant the shark had already begun its hunting.
Ben waggled his finger at it. “But listen up, buddy. You eat all my fish, and you’re toast, got it?” He grinned, quite liking the company.
Over the coming days and weeks, Ben would spend his evenings down on the lagoon’s water line, talking to his shark. When he had caught his own fish, and cleaned them, he’d always throw the remains to ‘Ralph,’ named after a beloved dog from his youth.
It didn’t take long for Ben to start speaking to the shark. First, just saying hello, in the mornings, but soon, he was having long conversations with the shark about his fears and his hopes, and basically anything that came to mind.
Oddly, it felt good to talk to someone, even if it wasn’t another person. Ben fiddled with a shell as he watched the shark.
“I bet you’re surprised to see me,” Ben said, watching Ralph glide close to the sand. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t even be here. In fact, you shouldn’t be seeing me, my kind that is, for another 100 million years, give or take a million.”
He dug his toes into the sand. “How did I get here? Long story, Ralph.” He chuckled. “Oh, you’ve got nothing but time, you say.”
So Ben told Ralph about finding the letters between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his great, great grandfather, the original Benjamin Cartwright. He told him of his friends who came with him; all funny, happy, enthusiastic, idealistic, and fatally naïve.
“I killed them,” he said, staring trance-like at the fin as it slowly cut the water in front of him, always moving, but staying close to the shoreline. Ben was sure he could see it roll slightly every now and then, so it could keep one black bead-like eye on him.
“No, not really, but, if I had used an ounce of sense, I may have made sure we were all better prepared… or better still, didn’t come at all.”