Fatalis

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The sun had gone down, the moon was rising, and the wind and currents were finally cooperating to bring the Hobie Cat almost within "walkin' distance" to shore. At least, that's how Patrick Vlaskovitz described where they were-six fathoms from the bottom at roughly a quarter of a mile out, which the young student knew he could swim if he had to. Whether Tim Douglass and Pancho d'Escoto could swim it, he didn't know.

Vlaskovitz also didn't care. After a shitload of hours just drifting out here, with the Cat's tail busted and d'Escoto not having remembered to bring the freaking phone, which was his responsibility, they were lucky to be within sight of shore at all. Only Vlaskovitz's skill with the sail had kept them from heading out to Japan or frigging Tonga on currents that were slightly stronger than the wind. At least Douglass had stuffed some Twix bars under the seat pad, so they had something to chew on while they waited for the tides and currents to become more favorable and help them toward shore.

In a way, as d'Escoto had lamely pointed out, it was a good thing they hadn't sailed shoreward sooner. When it was still daylight the southbound coastwise traffic lane-which was farthest out-and the northbound coastwise traffic lane were clogged with big motorboats going way too fast to watch out for stranded Hobie Cats. Hell, they'd almost gotten clocked by a weather buoy, and that sucker was standing still. Douglass didn't share his enthusiasm. The navy's Pacific Missile Range was located just north of San Miguel Island and they could easily have drifted into that. None of them had bothered to check in with the twice-daily radio warnings because they didn't expect to be stranded the hell out here.

But stranded they were, so the three young men just sat on the teal trampoline slung between the peapod-shaped blue pontoons, getting colder and colder and waiting-as Douglass put it-"for air and water to return us to the earth."

Douglass was the poet of the group. At least, he was the only one who didn't look out the window during English lit.

And they would be returned to the shore relatively soon, unless they got caught and stranded in kelp, which was all along this coastline stretch of the Santa Barbara Channel, according to the small, laminated chart they had. That would be the final indignity. Three hunky sailors, suntanned and cool, with a busted rudder, chocolate Twix smears on their mouths, and a Hobie Cat with a proud red, orange, and yellow sail snarled in large bundles of seaweed.

The skies darkened, the planets and stars began to show, and the Hobie Cat continued to bob in the right direction. The waters were insistently choppy and Vlaskovitz knew that by the time they got back to shore it would be the land that seemed unsteady. Hopefully-since they'd also left the cell phone in the car-they'd be close enough to a pay phone to call for someone to come and get them and bring them back to their own wheels.

Vlaskovitz consulted the chart by moonlight. The Hobie Cat was now about four hundred feet from shore. They were headed to an area of the beach that was only one fathom deep. As soon as they cleared the mooring buoy, he'd get off the damn Cat and pull it to-

The Hobie Cat shuddered violently and then stopped dead. The trampoline bulged in the center. The three men, who had been more or less lounging, were quickly alert.

"What the fuck?" d'Escoto blurted. He grabbed the forward crossbar, which rested between the pontoons, to keep from being tossed over.

"Submerged rock-" Douglass shouted.

"Shift to port," Vlaskovitz told the others. He wanted to try to alleviate the pressure on the center to keep the fabric from tearing. He held onto the halyard but let it go slack as he moved.

As the men slid to the left side of the vessel, the bulge suddenly sagged and vanished. The sailors stopped moving as the Hobie Cat once again bobbed restlessly on the restless sea.

"Ohhhhkay," d'Escoto said.

The other two sailors continued to watch the trampoline in silence. The slap of the dark water on the pontoons seemed unusually loud and active. It was stronger, Vlaskovitz decided as beads of water popped higher than before as the wavelets struck the pontoons.

Vlaskovitz tightened his hold on the halyard. They weren't far from shore and he wanted to get moving again. He didn't know what they'd hit, but he didn't want to run into it again.

As he began maneuvering the sail to catch the wind, the world flipped over. The Hobie Cat went up on its forward end, dropping the three men in the water, then stood on-end for a moment. The sailors popped back up just in time to see the catamaran pulled straight down. The vessel went under so hard and so fast that the mast bent back and snapped. The sail and heavy guylines whipped around before they submerged and then the catamaran was gone.

The cool waters calmed almost at once. Vlaskovitz dog-paddled in place as he waited for the Cat or some part of it to bob back up. It had to. They were only in ten or eleven feet of water and the vessel was nearly that long. But nothing came back up. Not even the chart.

"We got a fucking shark!" Douglass cried, spitting a mouthful of seawater across his chattering teeth.

They might. Vlaskovitz couldn't think of anything else that would have pulled the Cat down like that.

"Shit!" d'Escoto yelled.

The young man started swimming madly toward shore. Vlaskovitz and Douglass started after him.

"Slow it down, Pancho!" Vlaskovitz screamed. "If it's a shark, the motion may-"

D'Escoto stopped abruptly, straightened, and went down.

Vlaskovitz and Douglass stopped side by side. Moonlight swam across the still-swirling waters where the student had been.

"Shit sticks," Douglass said. "This is bad."

Vlaskovitz looked at his companion. They were vulnerable to attack and their body temperatures were dropping. They had to get out of there.

"Listen," Vlaskovitz said. "It's only about four hundred feet to shore. If we go in about a hundred feet more we can ride the breakers home."

"What about Pancho?"

"Swim," Vlaskovitz said.

"You mean we just leave him-?"

"We leave him or we join him," Vlaskovitz said. "Now let's go-but slowly. Don't kick if you can help it."

Vlaskovitz started out doing a slow, steady breast stroke. Douglass went with him.

"It's going to get us," Douglass said as he gulped down breaths.

"No way," Vlaskovitz said. He kept his eyes on the white-gold sand of the deserted beach. It wasn't that far away; all they needed to do was get there.

Their bodies rose and dipped with the swells, the water chilling them through their black, water-resistant suits. Despite his efforts to concentrate on the shore, Vlaskovitz was thinking about d'Escoto. He wondered if his friend died instantly or if he was alive long enough to realize what was happening to him. Maybe not. He hadn't screamed; he just seemed to freeze. Or maybe he was underwater by the time he figured it out, when it was too late to scream.

Jesus.

The current suddenly picked up beneath him. When Vlaskovitz felt the initial upward bump he thought it was something moving toward him from below. But then the wave began to roll him forward, fast, and he and Douglass were swept closer to shore. When the swell dissipated about one hundred feet from shore, the young man felt a slight undertow as the current pulled back. He resumed swimming slowly. Though the waters were probably only six or seven feet deep here, he didn't want to try and touch bottom yet. They'd get to shore faster if they continued to ride the waves.

He glanced at Douglass. His friend was keeping his head entirely above water, which was an awkward way to swim, with his eyes fixed on the shore. His strokes were stiff and the muscles of his shoulders were tight; he looked like he wanted to erupt But he was keeping it in check.

Another wave caught them, hoisting them up and ahead. Vlaskovitz rode it on his belly. The moonlit beach was reassuringly close, just twenty or so feet away. He wasn't even sure the water was deep enough here for a shark large enough to have done what this one did to the boat.

They were going to make it.

Vlaskovitz let his legs drop. They touched sand before they were fully extended. He stood. The water was up to his waist.

"Yes!"

He shuffled forward, the water sloshing against his backside, the cold grains of sand sliding from under his toes with the backwash. Douglass was beside him and then in front of him and then running way in front of him. The lanky man reached the deserted beach and simply dropped, facedown. He was lifted by an incoming breaker that plopped him down a few feet ahead. He crawled forward and turned his face to the heavens.

"I made it!" he cried. "You gray killing bastard, I made it!"

Vlaskovitz staggered to shore seconds later. He was breathing hard but remained standing. Shivering with relief, he stopped beyond the breakers and turned to look back at the sea.

"What do you see?" Douglass yelled over.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nada." Vlaskovitz scowled across the moon-sprinkled sea. He watched the wave crests for flotsam from the Hobie as he looked north along the shore. "It's weird, man. I don't see anything."

Douglass sat, flopped his wrists across his knees, and shook his head. "Pancho. Man, he can't be gone."

Vlaskovitz didn't want to believe it either and kept searching.

"Where the hell are we?" Douglass asked, looking around.

"Loon Point," Vlaskovitz said.

"Right, right," Douglass said. "I see that now." He got to his feet. "Hey, I'm going to find a phone and call for help."

"Solid. There should be one-"

Vlaskovitz stopped suddenly. He squinted to the right as something moved offshore. It was about thirty feet out and to the north.

"Hold on," Vlaskovitz said.

"What's up?" Douglass said.

"I see something!" he said. "Check it out!"

"Where, man?"

Vlaskovitz pointed and Douglass looked.

The twisted body of the Hobie Cat was coming ashore- in pieces. Both pontoons spearing through the water, the trampoline being dragged behind one. The mast and sail rolled in separately, the sail apparently perforated in spots.

But that wasn't all. There was something in the water, just beyond the wreckage. Something alive.

"Hey, I see it too!" Douglass said. "It's moving." He started running toward it. "Pancho! Yo, Panch!"

Vlaskovitz ran toward it as well. It was moving, a shape outlined by moonglow. As it came nearer the young man thought it might be Pancho crawling, since the shape was longer than it was tall. Then he realized that it wasn't Pancho d'Escoto at all. It had fur, enormous paws, and a short, slender tail.

"What the hell-?" he muttered.

From where he was standing it looked like a large dog with its head hung low. But it didn't walk like a dog. Its movements were slow and low and steady, oblivious to the waves and shifting sands.

Tim had reached the surf, nearly in front of the thing. He stopped. The thing turned its head toward him, which was also toward Vlaskovitz. Ten feet of water separated the animal and Douglass.

The pieces of the shattered Hobie Cat came to rest on the beach. After its spiraling, disjointed arrival, the scene seemed suddenly serene. But only for a moment.

What happened next came so quickly that it didn't register on Vlaskovitz until it was over. The dog-or whatever it was-continued to look toward them and also continued walking slowly. It was a soft-angled creature with a bright white outline and a perfectly balanced gait.

Then, suddenly, something flew at Douglass from the crest of the next falling wave. It was almost as though the plume itself had taken form and broke off, like a cell dividing. The shape shot forward so fast that it was on him before he had even turned to look at it. Douglass was driven back hard. He landed on the sand about four feet from where he'd been standing, his arms flying up as the thing's massive front paws struck his shoulders. As the young man's arms fell back down, the creature's head went up. Its jaw opened ninety degrees, silhouetting a pair of long, hooked fangs against the brilliant moon. Then the animal's head dropped hard and swift between its forelegs. There was a pop, and while Douglass shuddered on the beach, the beast raised its head and rushed back toward the sea.

Douglass's body went with the beast's head, stuck to it. The young man hung limp and uncomplaining.

The attack on Douglass took only a second or two. By the time Vlaskovitz looked back at the other creature, the one that had been walking ashore slowly, there was nothing he could do but that.

Look at it.

The animal had turned while Vlaskovitz had watched Douglass die. It was now racing at him so fast that he only had a moment to observe it in the bright moonlight. He could see now that the thing wasn't a dog. It was a cat-a monstrously large one. Just how large Vlaskovitz couldn't be sure, since it was moving and there wasn't enough light to tell for certain. But two things definitely stood out. One was its large, deepset eyes. They were dark and reflective on the surface with a gleaming white-amber core. The other was its teeth. Up close, in the brief snapshot view he got of them, Vlaskovitz saw that the sleek, ivory fangs were larger than butcher knives and as glistening-sharp.

A wave broke, or was it a roar? There was warm sea wind on his cheeks, or was it angry breath? He couldn't be sure, it was happening too fast-

An instant later Vlaskovitz flew back.

He felt the sand on his palms.

He saw the stars.

He saw three moons in the sky. And then two of the moons moved.

The great head went up and came down. Vlaskovitz experienced two hard, sharp punches just below each shoulder. He felt the air leave him, though not through his wide and silent mouth. His hot breath puffed up at him from where he'd been struck in the chest.

He felt something wet under both arms. He closed his eyes and felt himself being jerked up.

And then he felt nothing.