Gargantua (2 page)

Suddenly, her knees felt like they were shivering—but she still wasn’t in the least bit cold. Then the tremor became more pronounced and a rumbling sound seemed to come from all around her.
Great, another stupid tremor.
The brochure had promised “at worst” the occasional tremor, and the travel agent insisted that the island had “maybe one a week,” but there had been at least one per day since their arrival four days earlier. It was the one thing that spoiled the magic.

The tremor died down after about ten seconds, followed by the sounds of whooping, cheering, and hollering from the gang around the bonfire—John was loudest, of course. Marina shook her head.

“They’re nuts,” Carol said. “This whole island could crack down the middle, and they’d think it was some kind of roller coaster ride.”

“Well, y’know, we are here to have fun,” Marina said, surprised to find herself coming to the others’ defense when, in fact, she agreed with what Carol was saying.
I guess it’s that instinct to protect the herd against outsiders,
she thought with a small smile.

“Not everything is necessarily fun. I mean, Dave keeps going off and diving with you guys even though I don’t dive.”

“You can get certified here, y’know.”

Carol shook her head vigorously. “You don’t understand, I’m claustrophobic. I can’t even go snorkeling.”

“Oh.”

“I just wish he’d show some consideration, y’know? I mean, you’ve known him a while—is he always like this?”

Dammit, Dave,
Marina thought toward her friend,
you’re doing it again.
Every single girlfriend of his got to the point where they’d ask one of his friends if he was “always like this,” and she was sick and tired of it. She especially didn’t want to have to deal with it on her vacation when there was a perfectly good sunset to bask in.
I guess it isn’t just the tremors that can spoil the magic.

“Don’t you think you ought to be talking to Dave about this?”

“I tried—he just blows me off, says, ‘We’re on vacation, don’t be a pain.’ ”

Well, he’s got a point,
Marina almost said aloud but restrained herself.

Then something caught the corner of her eye. “Hey, look at that!”

“What?”

She bent down to pick up a seashell that almost glowed in the dusky light. In the usual concave shape of shells, the inside was coral pink, but the outer part seemed alive with color, a combination of pinks, purples, whites, and grays.

“Here’s another one,” Carol said, picking up one that was more of a solid pink.

Marina smiled.
Good, that distracted her.

They spent the next minute or so gathering up shells. They’d probably abandon them before they went back to the small bungalow the group had rented, but it was a fun little diversion.

“What’s all that?” Carol asked.

Marina followed her gaze to a tide pool that was covered in netting secured by buoys. She had a feeling that she knew what those nets were for.
But what the hell, let’s explore it anyhow. Anything to keep Carol’s mind off Dave.

As they got closer, wading into the pool up to their ankles, her suspicions proved correct: it was fishing net. “Oh look,” she said, a note of distaste in her voice, as she picked up a small lobster. Next to her, Carol liberated a large prawn.

Then she felt something tug at her feet. At first she thought it was seaweed, but then it dug sharply into her ankles.

Another tug, and this time, she almost stumbled face-first into the shallow water. Something was yanking the netting around.

Carol said, “Something’s trapped down there.”

Dropping both the lobster and her seashells, Marina started to clamber out of the tide pool, Carol doing likewise.

Yet another tug—more of a violent thrash, really—and this time, Marina
did
fall face-first into the water. Instinctively, she held her breath and closed her eyes before her face struck the water, feeling like someone had hit her with a damp washcloth.

The net continued to yank at her ankle with ever harder tugs. Marina tried to get up, but couldn’t get her legs to cooperate. Falling down had only entangled them in the net more.

A gurgling noise sounded next to her: Carol, trying to scream, but she too was face-down in the water. Marina struggled more, but only found herself tangled up worse.
I’d kill for my dive knife right now,
she thought.

The yanking was steadier now, dragging Marina and Carol into the ocean. Carol had managed to turn herself over and was crying out with a full-throated scream, uninhibited by salt water.

Marina found herself remembering a conversation with Dave the day they arrived. “Where are the lifeguards?” she had asked.

“We’re not back home,” Dave had said. “Everything isn’t regulated up the kazoo and people don’t litigate at the drop of a hat.”

At the time, Marina had found that refreshing. People had to get by on their own. Self-reliance. Marina had always prided herself on being self-reliant.

Now, she cursed whatever idiot thought that the beaches of Malau didn’t require lifeguards.
Self-reliance doesn’t do me a lot of good when I’m tangled in a net!

She had stopped struggling, as it only made things worse, and tried to relax, hoping that it might loosen the net enough for her to swim out. Sadly, Carol did not come to the same realization, and she continued to thrash about more and more as they were dragged out of the tide pool and into the ocean proper.

Marina remembered that Carol said something about being claustrophobic.

Then she saw it.

At first she thought it was a mask of some kind, floating in the ocean. Even in Malau, one always found such detritus in the water, and it was exactly the sort of thing that might get caught in a fishing net.

But masks didn’t blink.

They didn’t try to forcibly remove themselves from nets, either.

It’s a head,
she realized as the thing yanked itself suddenly to the left in an apparent attempt to free itself. The thing was green and scaly, with a small horn protruding from just above the eyes, like some kind of lizard or gecko or salamander or something—amphibians weren’t Marina’s strong suit.

“Ow!” she cried as the net started digging into her flesh. As good an idea as it might have been to try to relax herself, it was doomed to fail when two other bodies in the net—Carol and this lizard-thing—were thrashing around like they were having seizures.

The head shot upward, and Marina got a quick look at the thing’s long neck before the net twisted and yanked free of its moorings in the tide pool. Marina found herself suddenly completely underwater.

She hadn’t had a chance to hold her breath this time, and she gagged as salt water filled her nose and mouth. The net pulled inexorably tighter around her legs, chest, and neck.

Marina had managed to keep a relatively clear head, but now she couldn’t breathe and was effectively bound. Panic overtook her, and she too started thrashing about, trying to get a grip on the net to pull it off, trying to move toward the surface, trying to scream, trying to do
anything,
but to just
get out of this.

Her eye caught sight of something else in the net—it had to be the body that went with the head she saw. The forelegs were pretty strange-looking—more like claws. Plus, the body was as big as she was. And it seemed to be growing black spots.

Marina realized that the spots weren’t on the lizard, they were dancing in front of her eyes—she was blacking out.

One of the leg/claws ripped through the net, and the cords tightened around Marina’s neck.

She tried to scream.

Then everything went black.

“Did you see that?”

“What?”

“Thought I saw something move in the water.”

“It’s the ocean, Greg, things move in it all the time. It’s called an ecosystem.”

“Hardy-har-har. The fish is just about done.”

“Haven’t Carol and Marina gotten back yet?”

“Nah, Marina’s probably drooling over the sunset or something. We won’t see them for ages.”

“Hey, what about ‘Born to Run’?”

ONE

B
randon Ellway stared at the two suitcases, one garment bag, and three duffel bags in the room he and his father were to share during their stay in Malau, trying to figure out which one to unpack first.

Dad had told Brandon to unpack the luggage and check the two laptops while he went off to supervise the delivery of his specialized equipment. Dad always did that—no matter where they went, he always stood over the people who delivered all his toys to the hotel room.

Malau had just been the latest stop; Brandon and his father had been on the road for months, travelling to all sorts of interesting places, stopping home only long enough to restock on things like clothes.

Deciding to get the unpleasantness overwith, Brandon opened up his father’s suitcase. It was, naturally, a disaster area—clothes strewn about, unfolded and disorganized. As usual, Dad just threw stuff into the suitcase without thinking. At least he hadn’t mixed the dirty laundry up with the clean clothes, but that was only because Brandon himself had made sure the laundry was done their last day in Vancouver.

Sighing, Brandon sorted through Dad’s clothes, folded them, and put them away. Their room had two dressers with three drawers each. The underwear and socks went in the top drawer, shirts in the second, pants and shorts in the third. Then he hung up the garment bag, which contained Dad’s two suits, in the room’s closet.

That left his own suitcase, which was meticulously organized, just the way Mom had taught him.

Mom.

It had been a year since Brandon’s mother’s death. But the twelve-year-old refused to dwell on it. He wasn’t a dumb kid anymore; he wasn’t going to let it get to him. After all, he was Dad’s assistant—or
intern,
as he called it, but Brandon liked the other word better.

Even before Mom died, Brandon had been helping out. What was it that guy from that magazine called them? “One big happy science family.” Brandon probably knew enough about marine biology at twelve to qualify for a Bachelor’s Degree in the subject.

He finished putting away his own clothes, as well as his prize possession: the acid-free box that contained his precious
Captain Marvel
comics. These were the old Fawcett comics from the 1940s that C.C. Beck and Otto Binder did before the publishers of
Superman
sued them for infringing on their copyright. Brandon had inherited the comics from his grandfather, and he absolutely loved them. He refused to leave them anywhere; despite the risks, he always had to have the comics with him wherever he went.

He stowed the comics in the closet, then turned to the two laptops. One was Dad’s, used to construct models, fill in charts, and make notes. The other was Brandon’s, used partly to compile various bits of data that Dad needed, partly to play games (Brandon especially enjoyed a logic game he’d acquired off the Internet), but primarily for his home schooling.

Home schooling. Yeah, right. Like I’ve got a home.
Sure, they technically lived in San Diego, but it wasn’t like Brandon ever spent any time there anymore. Home were these two suitcases, Dad’s all messy and disorganized, Brandon’s neat and pristine, just like Mom’s always was.

Stop thinking about her. You’re over it, remember?

Brandon unzipped the case for Dad’s laptop and put it on the desk. As he set it down, he heard a soft clunk from inside one of the flaps. He ripped open the velcro to find a picture frame.

Mom.

It was the picture of her that Dad had taken on that boat in Key West—what turned out to be their last trip before Mom was diagnosed with the brain tumor. Brandon hadn’t liked Key West all that much, but the boat trip was fun. Mom looked really cool with the wind blowing her hair all around—kind of like a fashion model, almost.

I’m not gonna cry. I’m a big kid. Big kids don’t cry.

He’d been good. He hadn’t thought about Mom in weeks. Not even the last time he unpacked. But that stupid bellhop was talking to that other stupid bellhop about those two people that died on the beach last night, and that reminded Brandon of when Dad first told him about Mom, and—

Stop thinking about it!

He booted up Dad’s laptop, then set the picture down next to the bed closest to the door. That was going to be Dad’s bed, since Brandon preferred to sleep near the window, and Dad always let him. Then he unloaded his own laptop and booted it up.

While he waited for them to go through their startup routines, Brandon looked out the window. Though given the highfalutin’ name of the Hotel Ritz, their lodgings were, in fact, in a fairly ramshackle one-story wooden building that made the average Motel 6 back home look like the Plaza. Brandon’s first thought upon seeing it was that they were reliving the youth of Abraham Lincoln in his log cabin.

Still, they did have a view of the beach where, according to Dad, they’d probably do most of their work. Unlike the beaches back home in San Diego, this place was gorgeous. In all the time he’d been helping his parents out, Brandon had never seen water quite this blue before.
Unspoiled
was the word Dad had used, and from the way he described it, Brandon was worried that this island would be full of natives in grass skirts who used barter for trade.