Bad Fish (a JAWS prequel)

BAD FISH (A NaNoWriMo story for The Daily JAWS website)

June 27th, 1974

Millions of miles of underwater cables, each fitted with a hydrophone encircled the seaboard United states, tracking soviet subs daily and this one had to fry on Captain Roy Whitefoot’s watch. A fried hydrophone meant a gap in the electronic mesh. A gap that could be detected by a wily Ivan sub commander and compromise the nation’s defence. Imagine telling the White House a soviet sub from the Barents and the White Seas had materialised off New York raining nukes, slipping through the gap.

The faulty hydrophone would have to be located, hauled up, and repaired.

Cutting out of the US Naval yard off the coast of Maine, the ARC-2 Aurora, a USN cable layer had made good time. Within two days of sailing it had arrived at the edge of the continental shelf where the cable had started emitting irregular readings.

ARC-2 Aurora’s exact location was secret. She lowered anchor and steadied her position. The Aurora had weathered WW2, taking fire from Japanese Mitsubishi’s off Okinawa, supplied US forces on the Korean peninsula, and was spending her golden years laying SOSUS sonar cables. She was also a deep-sea salvager with two cranes capable of lifting upwards of ten tons each. A robust son-of-a-bitch vessel, battle-scarred, and reliable.

But even the sturdiest of war horses fall.

Captain Whitefoot tore off the sonargram and studied it. Long lines of SOSUS readings that pierced the ocean’s sound channels ended suddenly just above the anchors. A long thin flatline of dead information. Her mission was secret under the auspices of The Office of Naval Research; serious Area 51 / Flight 19 shit.

                “Shallow enough for a look-see,” said Whitefoot. Below her keel in one hundred feet of water, a cable was sparking and pulsing,

“It’s sending electrical impulses out like a CB radio. It’ll be heard all the way to Moscow,” he continued.

                “Probably damaged by a driftnet, this is a busy fishing area,” said Ben McCorbry, lead diver and all-round wannabee Evel Kinevel.

                “Local boy?” asked Whitefoot

                “Amity born and raised,” replied McCorbry, “two clicks from the base.”

His curls were shorn tight and he had the lithesome charm of a carney. “There should be good visibility all the way down,”

                “We could hoist it, McCorbry,” said Whitefoot.

                “Where would be the fun in that, Captain?” grinned McCorbry.

The divers were prepared. Four men in teams of two were lowered into a dinghy. It putt-putt-putted out a hundred yards from the swells. A few of the crew had come out on deck to enjoy the early morning sun.

                “If it can be sealed up, do it. Its making enough fuggin’ noise to wake the dead,” shouted Whitefoot. The weather was favourable, and it looked settled up to the 4^th of July. This was a routine mission and ARC-2 Aurora’s would be home for the celebrations.

McCorbry gave a thumbs up.

In the dinghy divers, Frost, Hoyt, and a dour technician named O’Reilly prepared. Fins were fitted, oxygen tanks pressurised as McCorbry guided the dinghy out.

He handed the outboard to Frost, a lean beanpole of a man. Tattooed with USMC ink, his beard disguised a bullet wound he’d received in two tours of ‘Nam.

                “See you in an hour,” said McCorbry.

The trio of divers flipped back into the ocean.

*

“Over there, did you see that?” asked Whitefoot to his second, Bates.

                “See what?” replied Bates.

Whitefoot pulled up a pair of high-powered binoculars.

                “Fin, possibly.” He said panning across the line of sea between the ship and the dinghy

                “Dolphin? Porpoise?” said Bates.

Like Whitefoot, he was weather-beaten and seemingly hewn out of oak.

                “Big, whatever it was,” murmured Whitefoot. He glanced at Bates, “It looked like a shark fin,” he said.

**

The Big fish moved and adjusted its pectoral fins honing in on the pulses like a raptor sighting prey. Four hundred and eighty million years of evolution coursed through the Great White’s mass. Its finely tuned electroreception nerves were vibrating a deep-seated impulse to investigate. The deep black eyes adapted to the ocean’s refraction and triangulated on the disturbances near the ocean bottom, adjusting automatically to the dimming light. Opening its vast jaws, lined with rows upon rows of serrated edged teeth, it allowed the sea to flush through the immense gills.

As it drew nearer to the electrical disturbance, it became more aware, more driven, and began a slow figure of eight above the sparking light.

It became aware on the periphery of its senses that other electrical signals were appearing.

Three to be exact.

With a sweep of its vast tail, the big fish swept towards them at the speed of a charging freight train.

Hoyt was first, though O’Reilly managed to see his end in a stream of air bubbles.

***

It was the scream across the sea that brought the crew to the port side. Whitefoot and Bates began barking orders to the crew. The gap between the dinghy and the ship might as well have been to the moon. The water around the dinghy had become a vibrant vermillion. And Frost was pulling hard to get the outboard going. The sound was like a chainsaw trying to catch.

                “SHARK!” shouted a sailor,

                “Tell him to shut up,” muttered Whitefoot.

Bates clambered down to find whoever 'him' was.

Whitefoot sounded quarters and the sailors snapped into action. They opened the arsenal. The best shots were positioned as sharpshooters and took aim.

A commotion just off the side of the ARC-2 Aurora led to points and shouts. It was McCorbry. He had jettisoned his tank and belt. He had pulled down his neoprene hood and was drooling blood.

The Bends.

Whitefoot shouted to get a ladder down as McCorbry flailed and attempted to pull down the collar of his suit to try to breathe. As he spun and splashed an immense shadow appeared beneath him. The sharpshooters started up. The water around McCorbry erupted as the jaws of a vast animal clamped around his sternum.

He had no time to scream. Just a fountain of arterial blood spouted from his mouth. An arm sheared at the shoulder like him, disappeared into the depths.

                “Get Frost,” ordered Whitefoot.

Another dinghy was prepped, a gantry arm prepared to lower into the scarlet waves.

Shouts and screams from the deck made Whitefoot look up. The sharpshooters began finding their mark. A huge fin ploughed through the water towards Frost. He finally got the outboard going. He turned the dinghy deftly around the pursuing fish. Then swung it around a few yards from the vessel.

Frost rummaged around the waterproof hold-all. With a grin, he found the sticks of TNT.

He’d use all of them.

He struck a waterproof lucifer and watched the flame take, hissing on the fuse.

The dinghy was catapulted into the air from the shark’s strike from below. Frost dropped the stick as he separated from the dinghy.

The dinghy landed topside on the deck amid the other dinghies, two more filled with the same canvas holdalls. Everything spilled out and rolled across the deck.

It was only then that the enormous catastrophe dawned on Captain Whitefoot. The TNT exploded and began a chain of explosions from the other canvas bags that shook the port side of the vessel.

Frost hit the water body prone, winding him. Corporal Bobby Frost, US Marine corps had seen it all. Firefights under red flares in tropical jungle. Asian beauties with skirts cut up to hip promising to love him a very long time. Spluttering, he got his bearings. The ARC-2 Aurora was in trouble. Black plumes of smoke billowed from her aft. An enormous crash of metal on metal shook the ship from bow to stern. The heavy cranes came loose from the force of the blasts and like two vast pendulums, tilted the ARC-2 Aurora past her tipping point. He heard the shouts and screams of men burning and dying from the ship.

Something shook him. A pressure across his leg then the sensation of him somehow leaking. He shook his head, spitting water. He was suddenly cold. He reached down to where the pressure had happened. His left leg was gone, mid-thigh. The femoral artery was pumping his whole essence into the ocean with every heartbeat.

And through the blood, Frost could see this dark shape rushing toward him. He had nothing, no means to defend himself, and no way to escape. As he watched his arms held out in defence disappear into the maw of the Great White, he found he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

****

The big fish had fed. The fish might have slept, its cold black eyes dimmed to a gaze, but its sensors, its instinct never stopped. As it moved toward the island the big fish might have recognised a beach party.

And the sound of music and laughter that usually meant prey.

** Note **
I'm a huge fan of JAWS and always wanted to draft a prequel. You should check out this wonderful site.
https://thedailyjaws.com/