He tugged again and took a few steps closer to the channel drop off. He continued to reel, and thankfully, the line started to slowly come up. But there was still weight on it. He knew what a shark or big ray felt like, and it was similar to this — dead weight.
But at least it was still coming, so that was a good thing. He reeled in more line and tried to calculate how much he'd reeled back in verse how much line was still down in the depths. As Gil reeled in, he stared into the water, looking for ‘color’ as they called it, the first glimpse of a catch, to get an idea of what exactly he had on his line.
He squinted. Gradually, something was taking shape from the darker water. “Big ray, maybe.” He kept reeling, drawing it toward him. When it was about a dozen feet out and coming up the side of the channel into shallow water, he suddenly realized, and then remembered with a dawning horror, what it could be.
“Shit.” He dropped his expensive Shimano rod and turned to run.
The pool-table-sized creature came up from the depths and into the shallows. It was sandy pale, and two fist-sized bulb-eyes popped up from the water to regard the fleeing man.
The emperor crab was one of the biggest crab species to have ever existed, and it had been known to attack dogs, livestock, and even people who were stupid enough to wander close to river mouths at dawn or dusk.
Gil splashed hard, throwing up waves, his bulky trout fishing pants catching some of the surge and beginning to fill with seawater. Unfortunately, he was 55, out of condition, and tiring fast.
The crab never slowed for a second, and as the water shallowed, it lifted up on pointed, stilt-like legs and accelerated. In the next instant, one of its four-foot-long claws reached out to take him by the neck. Gil screamed, but no one heard, and in another flash of returning memory, he knew why.
Don’t fish at dawn or dusk.
Why didn’t he remember that before and why didn’t he remember about the emperor crabs?
The crab was now holding its prize in close to itself, like a footballer holds the ball, and it immediately set about returning to the deep water.
Gil didn’t even bother fighting the grip, as it would have been like trying to combat an industrial press. As the crab went over the lip of the sandbank and back into the channel, Gil had one final wish: I hope I drown first.
CHAPTER 30
The water splashing his face brought him to abrupt wakefulness.
“Gluck, gluck: Andy, wake up, wake up!”
“Huh.” Andy blinked a pleasant dream away where he was in warm, dry clothing, and sitting down to dinner as a Thanksgiving turkey the size of a small car was placed on the table.
It vanished, and he wasn’t dry, or in nice clothes, but instead was starving, near naked, and cold.
“What?”
“Bad things, bad things coming.” He felt the sharp talons of his little friend on his thigh.
“Uh, was dreaming.” Depressingly, he was back on his floating log. He put a reassuring hand down on Gluck’s shivering back. “It’s okay, buddy, just dozed off for a minute, or… ”
But as Andy sat up, he knew why the small creature was agitated. The wind was up and dark clouds raced across the sky. Added to that, the temperature had dropped 10 degrees. Waves now lapped the side of his log, and from time to time, the huge tree lurched in the water.
There was no doubt that a storm was bearing down on them — that was the bad news. The good news was the wind came from the west and it was blowing him toward the shoreline.
“Jesus, how long was I asleep?”
Andy looked up at the clouds billowing up from that direction. They were dark, ominous, and held flecks of lightning within them. He then turned to the distant shoreline. Would he be beached, or swamped by the storm before then?
Who will win? he wondered aloud.
Another wave and more spray whipped across them. Gluck raised its bony wings, one opening wide and the other deformed one, just only lifting from its body. It held its balance, but it skidded.
“Whoops. Hang in there, little buddy.” He reached down and scooped him up. “Better you go back in here where I can keep an eye on you.”
Andy popped him in the near empty bag. There was no food or water left now. So something had to change one way or the other.
The tree lurched as a larger wave rocked it. Andy knew that when the storm was fully upon them, he could expect them to be rolled over and he’d be going in.
Slowly but surely, the tree was being washed and wind-pushed toward the shoreline, and Andy squinted into the salt spray. He was way too far out to leave his tree now, but on the coastline, he began to make out landmarks — in the distance was what could have been a single tall tree at the waterline, and all of its branches looked to have been wind-blasted off from one side.
“You’re kidding me; that’s where our boat is.” He grinned. “We made it.”
Andy looked about and then toward the shore — he was still about 300 feet from the land.
“Damn, might as well be on another planet,” he cursed and wished he had something to throw. He also wished he could look below the water and see if his deadly shadow was still there.
The weather was growing darker, but between him and the shore, a few of the medium-sized pterosaurs still dive-bombed the water’s surface and snatched up 20-pound silver torpedoes in their beak. It made his empty stomach rumble.
In another 10 minutes, he guessed they’d pass through the school of fish. Maybe the baitfish might leave some debris on the surface — a fresh fish scrap was better than nothing.
He waited and shivered slightly. With little clothing and no shelter, it wouldn’t take long for him to suffer from exposure. Finding shelter had always been his number one priority, and now he was caught out in the open.
As they approached the school of fish that had now moved closer to be only about a few dozen feet to his side, he saw he was still about 200 feet from the shore. But waves now rocked the trunk so much; it bobbed and some even crashed over its surface. However, he was still moving, and for the first time, he felt a glimmer of hope that his tree might wash up before it was tipped by the storm.
And then he felt the first sensation of grinding.
Andy frowned, not understanding what was happening until he caught a glimpse of weed about 20 to 30 feet down.
“Ah, shit no; the bottom.”
The grinding continued and then the tree slowed and stopped, its lower branches catching fast on the sea bottom. He looked up — still about 150 feet of open water.
“Well, I’m screwed.”
Silver torpedoes shot past his perch on the trunk, and only about 30 feet away, a pterosaur dived to snatch one of the fish from the surface. Up close, he could see these pterosaurs were a fair size and probably stood about four feet in height.
Another came in, grabbed a huge fish, and went to wheel away. However, this time, it never made it. From below the surface, a massive grey beast shot upward, its three-foot-wide head catching the body of the flying reptile and with the sound of crunching bones, dragged it back below the surface.
That could have been me, he thought.
Andy’s dark shadow was there; it had always been there, waiting for him, or for anything else.
But for now, it was busy.
To the beach or die trying, he thought madly and dived in.
The water was still bath-warm, but he felt the chill of death all around him. Andy was no great swimmer, but he powered on, one arm over the other. He kept his eyes tightly shut. He didn’t want to see any visions of hell rising up to snatch him from the surface and crunch his bones like sticks, like what happened to the flying reptile.