Chapter 5: In Troubled Times

Chapter 4 comes from a different perspective, Sarah's. You begin to catch a glimpse of the events happening on Earth. Take a read, tell me what you think!!

“…another cruise ship has mysteriously sunk beneath the waves of the Pacific, and the divers charged with searching for the wreckage, in order to find any explanation of these strange phenomena, have been reported missing. We have received unconfirmed reports that the individual state legislatures on the coasts are contemplating a temporary ban on all commercialized water-born vehicles until more information on the rising situation can be procured.

“There are also other unconfirmed reports that our nation’s President has been in contact with other world governments in an attempt to gain control of the situation, and discover who is behind it. None have yet to point any fingers at who may be responsible for these events, but it is safe to say that, soon, fists may be flying every which way as we attempt to resolve this rising crisis.”

The television flicked to a new channel with a gentle snap. “There has been yet another sighting of what we believe to be a new and unusual breed of aquatic life swimming through the oceans. Fishermen have yet to succeed in the capture of one of these strange creatures, however, attempts are still being made. You better hurry fishermen, there may not be much time left for you to put your name to this new and bizarre fish. So far, the best image we have is this one,” the man on the TV said as a blurry image popped up on the green screen. “The blurred image here shows a long, fast-moving, elongated creature. It seems to be moving intentionally towa…” Sarah grabbed the remote from where she had placed it on the arm rest and switched off the TV. All it was, was a newscast on the TV of the events that had been unfolding for the past two weeks.

First Korbin disappeared on his way home from the football party, which cultivated a series of news reports as people searched for him, and he had given no explanation of why or where he was going, but those reports were stifled by the reports of what was happening to the oceans. Korbin had told Sarah and Erik that he would see them on Monday, but Monday rolled around and Korbin was nowhere to be seen, nor was he there Tuesday, or Wednesday or any other day since. He was just gone, with no hint of his existence remaining, leaving Sarah to feel at fault for his disappearance. She should have gone with him, even though he insisted on going alone. Why did she let him leave?

After his disappearance, reports began trickling in of strange creatures roaming around the oceans, new and possibly dangerous creatures. People began hunts, searching vigorously for the creatures in hopes of being the first to catch one and discover their origins. Every single one of them had been in it for the faint promise of riches. Next came the reports of people vanishing without a trace in the oceans, and then of cruise ships and military vessels, including submarines, unexpectedly, and mysteriously, sinking.

People don’t seem to be making the connection that maybe it’s those strange creatures that are causing all these happenings. “Fish can’t harm our ships,” they say. What, do they expect enemy submarines to shoot their missiles and torpedoes into our ships without us knowing about it? The only thing submarines have been able to report is that they tracked something on the very far reaches of their radar and then a split second later they were gone, sunk by the unknown blip. No reports after that, no hint of what could have done it, and it’s not just happening to American ships either. Attacks have been reported from the British, the Russians, and the Chinese; they all reported missing ocean born vessels of every variety, along with warning the public of the new ocean dangers.

Korbin disappeared around the same time that the creatures were sighted, which was the same time that the ships began to sink, and also the same time when people began to go missing. Was he a part of it, or just the first victim? His parents have been worried sick, contacting Sarah more than once to see if she had seen him, which she hadn’t, but she was worried too. Two weeks had passed since Korbin disappeared, and all Sarah had been able to do was sulk. She had spent enough time with him that his vanishing cut like a cold knife. How could he just disappear, and without a trace?

Looking at the clock, Sarah realized she had to get going, school would be starting soon and she could not afford to be late. Being a cheerleader, she was on the popular end of the school, but her friends left little room for fault. You either had to be the perfect little cheerleader who believes that she is better than everyone, or you aren’t part of their friend group, although it ended up seeming more like a cult. Sarah was an exception, though. She was popular, but she did not go around making others seem less human than she was. All in all, was she so different from them? Her friends went around making fun of the less fortunate, Sarah did not, but she did not try and stop it either. Was there really an excuse she could come up with that could justify her?

Jules was the first one to greet her when she reached school. She was one of the nicer in the group, and more of a friend to Sarah than any of the other girls had been. Jules made it a point to not pick on anyone either, so Sarah made a strong effort to hang around Jules more than any of the other self-absorbed girls. On top of that, Jules was also a genius.

“Hey, Sarah!!” Jules called out to her, running up and giving her a quick hug. “How has your week been?”

“Bad,” Sarah responded honestly. She didn’t feel like any week sat moping around about Korbin’s disappearance could be considered a good week, or even an okay week.

“How about yours, though?” Sarah asked genuinely.

“About the same,” Jules responded, looking around as if to make sure none of the other girls were around. She usually did this when she was about to go on one of her genius rants. “But I was researching those creatures a little,” she began. “You know, the ones on the news?” Jules was talking about those eels. She had been obsessed with them ever since their first sightings. “I think I might know what they are.”

Sarah looked up into Jules’ eyes, startled that she was able to find anything about these things so quickly, let alone find anything at all.

“They’re nowhere near new,” she continued, explaining her find. “In fact, they’re quite ancient, but they disappeared a really long time ago, or were thought extinct, or something along those lines. I haven’t been able to figure out why though.” Jules flipped her backpack off of her shoulders and swung it around to her front, removing a book from it and swiping through it to what Sarah felt would be a random page, but Jules knew exactly what page she was flipping to. She twisted the book around so that Sarah could see what was on it. It was a drawing of one of the creatures.

Sarah snatched the book from Jules’ grip and stared at it, examining closely what the creatures looked like. “Where did you find this?” she asked. The book held an immensely detailed drawing of one of the creatures. Its fins shown like razors, with a crimson stripe running like blood down its back. Its features were vile and threatening, and its body long and curved with an elongated tail fin that would work well to produce rapid movements. The area around it was drawn to suggest extremely fast movement. The creature was rushing by purposefully blurred drawings of the larger and faster fish in the oceans. There were also unreadable markings around the images that looked as if they were meant to explain the creature’s dimensions, but they were symbols that Sarah was unable to recognize. The creatures’ description was also in a language she was unable to translate. 

“It wasn’t actually that difficult,” Jules explained less than humbly. “You know, ancient myths and legends and stuff like that. I just went and looked for something about giant eels after I had seen the images on the news.” Jules saying something was not difficult for her basically means that, for anyone else, it would have taken weeks, or months, or years, and an insane amount of studying that only she would be willing to commit to. “I’ve been doing a little bit of work on the translation. My best translation so far gives it the name The Llahtare, or The Horrors. This part here,” Jules said, pointing to a jumbly bit of the paragraph, “I think is saying that they have titanic strength, and can travel faster than the speed of sound. Well, not those words exactly, cause they didn’t know about that stuff when this was written.” Those characteristics would explain how all those big ships had been brought down.

“Jules, Sarah,” Amy called to them with her harmonic voice from across the hall. When they looked over to her, she adjusted her auburn hair, pushing it back behind her ear and smiling darkly. “Come help me with my make-up.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and looked at Jules, who just shrugged and started walking towards Amy with a smile. They arrived at the bathroom with the intention to help Amy with her make-up then realized she had already applied it. So, what did she want?

“So what were you two talking about,” Amy asked suspiciously, staring into the mirror. She always wanted to know everything about everything that had absolutely nothing to do with her.

“Those creatures that have been on the news,” Jules answered honestly. “I’ve been researching them, seeing if I could find out any information on what they are, or at least what they could be.” Amy glared at her, as if knowing she had more information to offer.

“And?” Amy’s curiosity, coupled with her inability to get this information herself, was beginning to aggravate her. She wasn’t making much of an effort to hide it either.

 “And I haven’t found any useful information yet,” Jules lied.

Amy’s face turned red with annoyance. After shooting us another glare, Amy stamped to the door of the bathroom, stopped for a split second to switch her demeanor back to a look of perfection, and then walked out.

Jules had a childish grin on her face. She looked back at me over her shoulder as she followed Amy’s lead out of the bathroom and shot me a humored smile. “Well, come on,” Jules instructed, “let’s get ourselves to class.”
            The day moved progressively slower as it went on. Sarah had, more than once, almost fallen asleep in class in an attempt to pay attention. She figured out that the less she paid attention, the less she wanted to sleep, but any attempt to pay attention made her tired. Lunch finally came around; offering her the hope of a little more energy, but the food was as crappy as usual. Sarah ate it anyway, optimistic that it might wake her up.

I have to survive, she thought to herself, chuckling.

Sarah looked around to see Jules lumbering up to her aimlessly, unaware of which direction she needed to go because she had her face buried within the pages of the same book from that morning. Her book was being carried in one hand, propped up so close to her face that she was completely unrecognizable, except that her hair flowed out from it, causing her to look as if she had a book for a face. A second book rested down at her side. It looked dusty, but could be a journal that was made to look like that.

Jules finally reached the table and sat down in an open seat beside Sarah on the other side of Erik, who hadn’t been very talkative as of yet. “Umm, this seems to be bad,” Jules said to no one in particular, grabbing the attention of both Sarah and Erik. “Real bad,” she continued to no one a few seconds later.

“Ugh, what is real bad?” Sarah blurted out, unable to hold in her curiosity. Erik had already lost interest and turned back to his food. Korbin’s disappearance had been hard on him too, and, even though he tried to put on a strong face, hadn’t talked much in recent days.

“The Llahtare…the name, it’s just what they’re called when they’re young. According to this ancient legend, the reason they were called The Horrors is because they hunted in pods of about fifteen or twenty, and that their swift movements and strength would tear things to shreds within moments by just running beneath or beside them. At any time there were at least, at the very least it says,” Jules repeated, “twenty pods of twenty with a full grown forerunner called the Kafshë Deti Vigane.” She paused dragging her finger along the page, flipping back and forth between that page and the next one, “otherwise known as Leviathans,” she paused again. “At least that’s how it’s translated,” she commented, chuckling to herself before returning to a fearful demeanor.

Jules looked at Sarah, stricken.

“Jules,” Sarah said in an attempt to calm her friends nerves, “that does not mean this is real just because you are reading it in a book.” Jules ignored her, returning her face to her book.

“Apparently, due to some event a long time ago, a vast majority of the Llahtare began to shift into Leviathans at the same time. It doesn’t give any explanation as to how they transformed, so to speak, or how they were stopped, but they did destroy the entirety of that civilization at the time, all except for two families.” Jules turned her gaze to Sarah, eyes almost fogging over. “You don’t…” she stuttered, “You don’t think that all that we know of civilization has to die off for them to be stopped, do you?”

At that moment the book was snatched from under Jules’ nose, “Hey!” Jules exclaimed in annoyance.

“You said you hadn’t found anything you liar,” Amy snapped at Jules from behind her.

At that moment, Erik stood up with his tray of barely touched food and began to walk away. Sarah stared after him, wondering if she should follow, but didn’t want to be rude to Jules and just up and leave.

Looking at the book, Amy’s face turned from anger into a mask of confusion, ignoring Erik and everyone else. “Oh,” she said, flipping a few pages. “You only found a picture of it?”

Jules ripped the book from Amy’s hands. “Yes,” Jules said with frustration in her voice. “Now go mind your own business. You don’t always have to know everything about everyone just because you think you deserve to.”

Amy took the insult silently and shuffled away.

“Gah, I can’t stand her sometimes. She’s so arrogant,” Jules exclaimed, irritated. “What, does she think she can just take and do whatever she wants? If so, then she’s got another thing coming to her.”

“Settle down, she didn’t get any information on them. It’s not like it’s a secret either. Is

 

it?” Sarah asked.

 

“Let’s just say this book, currently, isn’t supposed to exist in my hands,” Jules explained.

            “Then how is it that it does, and that you are the one that has it?” Sarah asked confused. Why would a book not supposed to exist? If that was actually true, how did Jules come by it, and so soon after these events started occurring? It was all so suspicious. Sarah wondered if she knew how she came across it. She couldn’t have just found it lying around.

            “It was in a box, in my basement,” Jules said suspiciously, averting her gaze.

            “A box…in your basement? Why on Earth would you just randomly go looking in boxes in your basement?” Sarah asked.

            “Because they’ve been down there for a long time and I thought I’d take a look at them,” Jules said. “They’re just everyday books, you know, the type you would read in school. Just old and dusty,” Jules dodged.

            “Tell me then, how many of them are in English?” Sarah asked, cornering her. She knew the book Jules had now was not written in English, and Sarah doubted the others would be either, which would make them not everyday books to read in school.

            “Uhh...” Jules stammered, her voice was a little wavy. Why would there be reason for her voice to be wavy? Was she afraid? “Listen, Sarah, you can’t tell anyone. I’m not supposed to read any of the books, and, yes, they’re all in a different language. Apparently they explain a lot of things my parents don’t want me to know about our family history, at least not yet anyway. My mother’s parents made her read them when she was about my age, and she was forced to translate them herself. They made her promise never to transcribe them to English; I’ve only been able to get my hands on two of them. My parents protect them amazingly well.”

            “What do you mean, amazingly well?” Sarah asked.

“Like, in our basement, behind a bookshelf, is a massive safe with a code I’m not supposed to know, that I do actually know, because in my father’s dresser there’s a notebook, basically a journal, where he keeps his passwords to stuff, and there was one I didn’t recognize, so I did some exploring, and I found the safe, and I remembered the code, so I went in the safe and found the books my mom had told me about that she said we didn’t have anymore, but she lied, because apparently she was trying to protect me or something, so here I am, with one of the books that happens to tell about these creatures, because I went in the safe to look for it.” Jules immediately hung her head and took the deepest breath Sarah had ever seen someone take before. She sat in her seat and heaved like a hyperventilating whale in an attempt to catch her breath.

            “So, then, what do you actually know about these books and these creatures?” Sarah asked, prying deeper into Jules’ secrets.

The conversation ended abruptly as the bell rang for lunch to end and everyone stood up to put their trays away and leave for class. Sarah sighed, unhappy that, at the point where Jules finally started to tell the truth, they could not further their conversation. Sarah didn’t have any classes with Jules for the rest of the day, and was unable to see her until the end of the day when she forced her way to Jules’ locker in an attempt to pry the rest of the information out of her.

Jules was ready for her, and began to speak before Sarah could even get a word out. She hadn’t even thought that Jules had seen her. “Meet me at the end of my driveway tonight at midnight and I’ll take you somewhere mentioned in one of the books. On the way, I’ll explain everything I know.”

Sarah headed home immediately, completed her homework, which took longer than expected because her focus was elsewhere, and then proceeded to wait. Jules had been deliberately vague, yet, in a way, near the end it had begun to feel like she was doing it on purpose, like she wanted Sarah to ask all those questions and pry information from her.

Dinner rolled around and Sarah felt like she could barely eat, though she did anyway. After dinner, she went up to her room and lay in bed, closing her eyes for a while in hopes that she could sleep before her little expedition. She didn’t have any success.

            The moon began to rise up not long after the suns light perished behind the horizon. The hours passed by slowly. Sarah’s anxiousness was almost seeping out through her pores. It was Friday and she often disappeared over the weekends, so her parents wouldn’t worry if she was gone for a while, not that she expected to be gone for a long time.

Another hour passed, and night crept forward more and more until it blanketed the city in darkness. Glancing at the clock, Sarah sputtered in annoyance. It read 10:29. The most annoying part was that she was actually interested in what Jules had to say, especially about where they were going, but she didn’t know where they were going, and that was exactly why she wanted to know.

            The moon was almost at its peak. 11:02, but she still had a while before she had to leave. Sarah’s expectations were high. If Jules gave her any less than a hundred percent, she would scream and flail like a child until Jules relinquished the rest of the information she held inside the genius, secretive brain of hers. 11:37, just a few more minutes and she could head over to Jules’ place. Walking there would take at least twenty minutes, but at least she would be doing something to pass the time.

“Ugh, never mind. I’ll leave now,” Sarah whispered to herself in frustration. She was beyond sick of waiting. “Getting there two minutes early will not make any different what-so-ever.” Sarah left her room and made her way to the front door. She slid her shoes on and removed her coat from its hook on the left side of the door, putting it on. She gripped the door handle, shivering slightly as her fleshy hand gripped the cold metal. She swung the door open silently, letting in a gentle, yet chilling draft into the restless house behind her.

            The sidewalks were completely devoid of life, deserted like one of those old cowboy towns in the old west. Sarah spent her walk imagining tumbleweeds rolling around with the cold breeze that glided down the road. A car passed by, accompanied by that quiet whooshing sound as it glided by at a little over thirty-five miles per hour, because who went the actual speed limit? The moon seemed to breathe its beams onto the lampposts, illuminating their dead, dark carcasses. For some reason all of the lamps weren’t lit. Sarah could see only because of the many porch lights that spontaneously switched on as she walked by. Apparently their motion sensors had a wide range.

The wind rustled through the trees around here, which stood as sentinels, protecting the homes they had dug their roots in front of. The symphony of their crackling branches gave the trees the illusion of a heartbeat, almost making them appear alive in the cold chill of winter. With the accompaniment of the porch lights behind them, the trees gave of frightening shadows as their branches were projected as darkness upon the sidewalk and streets before her. Sometimes they swayed, causing the scenario to become all the more spooky.

            With each step Sarah edged closer to Jules’ house. Her anticipation leveled out eventually, but she still held high expectations for the information Jules had to offer. Jules was making an extremely unnecessary effort to be vague, which was the only motivation that caused Sarah to be interested at all. There had to be another purpose for it, or there would be no rhyme or reason to this late night escapade. What could possibly be so important and secretive that it couldn’t be said around other people? This wasn’t the secret service.

 A few more minutes passed in thought until Jules’ house came into view, standing tall on the street corner. It had, by far, the largest amount of land allotted to it within the residential areas. Somehow Jules already knew Sarah was there, or she happened to arrive with perfect timing. The porch light flickered on and the white doors of the garage opened with a sound like grinding metal, leading into the abyss of its gaping mouth. Inside the garage was a perpetual darkness seeping out onto the driveway, the ethereal shadows preparing to swallow up anything that drew near.

Two headlights flashed like blinding eyes, piercing through the shallow darkness within the black hole of the garage. A black Porsche pulled out from within, crunching its tires against the gloomy asphalt of Jules’ driveway. Sarah stood at the end of the sidewalk where the cement pavement struck Jules’ driveway. The car slowly pulled up beside Sarah, stopping just as the tinted window reached her position. The window gradually rolled down to reveal Jules sitting at the wheel of the expensive car and Sarah leaned over to peer inside at her friend.

“Come on, get in,” Jules whispered unnecessarily, leaning across the middle from the driver’s side in order to look out the window.

Jules pressed her lead foot on the gas the instant Sarah closed the door behind her, without even giving her time to buckle her seatbelt. Jules pulled the car out of the driveway and took a sharp right, rushing off into the night. The car accelerated silently, so silently, in fact, that it appeared as if the car didn’t even exist, but it obviously did, they were inside it. The only sound breaking through the illusion of the vehicles nonexistence was the very quiet revving of the engine as Jules easily switched between gears.  

“Where are we going?” Sarah asked.

“The ocean. I’ll tell you more when we get there.”

“Its winter,” Sarah exclaimed, “the ocean will be freezing! I’m not dressed for this.”

            “It won’t be cold where we’re going,” Jules explained.

            “How can you know that?” Sarah asked, “Have you been there?”

            “No I haven’t, but, from what I’ve researched, it’s not necessarily affected by natural elements. It’s,” she paused to think for a second, “magical, for lack of a better word.”

            “There’s no such thing as magic, Jules, so your lack of a better word should look for a better word,” Sarah said, a snarky tone creeping into her speech.

            “I didn’t say it exists, I said the Island has unusual properties,” Jules said.

            “You didn’t say it like that, though.”

            “Oh, you’re hopeless.”

            After two more hours of ceaseless driving, they finally reached the lot where people could park to go to the beach. Jules drove all the way to the far side where the docks were, and parked and shut off the car. It was empty, utterly silent except for the occasional hoot of a single, brave owl. It was not at all surprising that the lot was empty. It was freezing, and no one would have a purpose to come to the beach when it was covered in snowdrifts, and night. It felt like they were in a horror film, but Sarah had high hopes that it wouldn’t turn out like one.

            Sarah stepped out of the car and unhappily into the chilly night. There was no wind blowing this time. The only sound was coming from the glacial waves flowing in and out with the tide.

“Come on,” Jules said, moving around the car and pushing Sarah forward towards the docks. A hollow sound came up to them with every step they took on the wooded path of the dock. It creaked occasionally, and unexpectedly, making Sarah cringe as she tensed up each time. It was as if the docks were telling them that they weren’t supposed to be there. Throughout all the time Sarah had known her, Jules had never taken her to this place, there had to be a purpose for that.

            They stopped in front of a dull grey door. It looked unusually placed, like it was just shoved into the wall. The surrounding walls were a deep and lively brown, the door definitely didn’t fit. Jules pulled out a key, placed it into the mouth of the lock and turned it. The bolt clicked open, its hunger satisfied. The door swung inward, showing them what it had to offer.

A boat sat in the center of the room, bobbing up and down on the constantly fluctuating water that it rested on. The boats presence in itself was unusual; most people would take their boats out of the water during the wintertime. It was a fairly large custom speedboat with a massive motor with enough horsepower to allow it to reach speeds topping two hundred miles an hour.

            “We’re going on that?” Sarah asked confused, stepping into the heated room. “Can you even drive it?”

            Jules looked at her and rolled her eyes. “Of course I can drive it, my dad taught me a while ago.” Sarah started to get nervous; they were going on the same water the government was contemplating banning the use of.

“How long ago is a while?”

            “Umm, six or seven years ago…” Jules said with an apologetic look and an unnerving half smile on her face.

“SEVEN YEARS! You cannot seriously think that I am going to get on a boat with you, out there, in the freezing cold, when you barely know how to drive it.”

Jules looked hurt.

“No, you don’t get to look at me like that.”

Now Jules’ lips puckered up and she put on puppy eyes.

“No, Jules,” Sarah exclaimed. “Stop.”

Jules just shrugged, “Meh…alright then, just means you don’t get to know where all this stuff came from.”

Jules flicked on the lights and gestured around. There were shelves upon shelves stocked with unusual gems and daggers. Between the shelves, and lined up along the adjacent wall, were wooden mannequins with clothing and armor that was no longer worn anywhere. One of the suits was made from black leather with such beautiful designs that Sarah could barely tear her eyes away. It also had a cape. Leather armor never had capes. No one in their right mind would wear it, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

The walls were lined with racks of weaponry, from blunt weapons, like hammers and maces, to sharp weapons, like swords and spears. There were bows and crossbows with bolts and arrows resting in their quivers beside them. Every weapon in the room was razor sharp and prepped for battle and all had a timeless, silvery sheen to them.

Bookshelves lined the walls on the far side of the room, filled with ancient and dusty books, but none of them looked damaged or unreadable. The bookshelves reached the ceilings in an attempt to make the most of the space provided.

“Most of our books are here,” Jules explained, “but the two that I’ve been carrying around were actually in the vault in our basement, along with this key,” Jules said, holding up the key she had used to enter the room. “I think my mom brought a couple of them home after the appearance of the Llahtare, she must have recognized them from when she was a child. We’re only here now because my parents are gone for the next week, but I’ve told them that I have no interest in these things. So they trust me…I think. That or they just want me to figure it out on my own, or decide on my own whether or not I want to.”

            Sarah spun her head towards Jules, finally able to tear her eyes away from the intricate display of jewels and weapons. “Fine, I’ll come, but you better be the best boat driver ever or I will never forgive you.” 

Jules smiled and walked over to the two ramps on either side of the boat, which led down closer to the water, and untied the boat from its moorings. She then moved to pull the lever that opened the door, allowing the boat direct access to the sudden and unusual stillness of the oceans.

Jules jumped into the boat, causing it to rock slightly in surprise at being touched after so long. Sarah hesitantly stepped in, half expecting it to spring a leak, or sink, but it held firm. For its size, it only possessed two seats, whose red and black leather design was dusty from lack of use, but they still complimented the faded red of the ship’s hull regardless of the dust.

            Sarah jumped and let out a screech when Jules turned on the motor, bringing the boat to life without warning.

Jules twisted around at the wheel and laughed, “Settle down, you. I just started the boat.”

She pulled a lever down and the boat started to move backwards, towards the gaping hole that functioned as their exit. As soon as they were a fair distance away Jules pushed a button and turned around to see the light in the boathouse turn off and the doors close on their own.

“Good, I hit the right one,” Jules said under her breath.

They rode in silence for a few miles as the boat skimmed quietly across the water, cutting through the surface at a staggering one-hundred and ten miles per hour. The moon was shining brightly, reflecting beautifully off of the rolling waters. The wind blew strongly against their faces, blasting their hair back, making them look like they were modeling for some up and coming magazine or fashion line. They had passed out of view of land, which officially dropped them off into the open seas, leaving Sarah completely oblivious as to where they were and where they were going.

“What’s that?” Sarah asked, interrupting the tranquil night and pointing to a dark panel next to the steering wheel.

Jules’ gaze stayed focused forward as she responded: “It’s a radar panel.”

            “You have radar in your boat?”

            Jules shrugged, “Hey, my family is rich; when we can, we get the good stuff.”

“Wow,” Sarah looked out across the monotonous water. She sighed, bored out of her mind.

Jules pointed off into the distance.

“See that speck way out there?” Jules asked. There was a black spot far off in the distance, illuminated by a direct stream of moonlight. “That’s where we’re headed.” 

Sarah looked at her like she was insane, “Why?”

            “It was mentioned in the book about the Leviathan, and I feel like it might have some connection to these creatures. I intend to find out what that connection is.” The radar panel flashed with the rotating green line that is often seen in movies.

“What’s the distance of this thing?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe two hundred miles? A hundred accurately, but I could be wrong.”

It flashed again; this time with movement. A green blip had appeared on the screen. Within two seconds it had already moved significantly closer. Something was coming towards them tremendously fast. The blip was only about seventy miles out according to the radar and sped closer in rapid intervals.

“Jules…speed up,” Sarah exclaimed nervously.

“Hold on,” Jules said between clenched teeth. The boat accelerated rapidly, one-twenty…one-thirty…one-sixty. It maxed itself at two-twenty and, no matter how hard Jules pushed, it refused to go any faster. Regardless of their speed, the blip was refusing to fall behind, and continued to steadily push closer.

Sarah stepped forward and gripped Jules’ shoulder tightly, “How far are we?”

Jules thought for a second and decided to guestimate, “ten miles, maybe eight.” The blip was fifty miles away, but its size was increasing, like it was splitting.

“How many did you say were usually in a pod?” Sarah asked, beginning to understand what was chasing them.

“Do you realize we are being chased? My goodness, how many questions can pop into your little head in a crisis? I’d hate to be around you during a fight. Hey, do you think he’s ok? Hey, do you think that blood is real? Hey, does his eye look purple to you? Where’s the popcorn?”

            “JULES,” Sarah exclaimed, “I’m serious.”

Jules looked up at her quickly, then back to the water, “Fifteen to twenty.”

Sarah shuddered. “There’s more than one,” she said under her breath.

Jules immediately turned her attention to the expanse of water behind the boat, staring out over her shoulder in an attempt to catch a glimpse of possible dorsal fins rising above the water, like those of sharks on a hunt. Sarah turned with her. It was too dark to make anything out clearly, but what they could see was a large wave looming in the distance, rapidly drawing nearer. They turned their focus back to the Island, it was so close, yet it seemed so far. The creatures would catch up before the boat could make it. They counted down the moments. The Llahtare were a mile behind and the island barely two miles in front. In a flash, the creatures were directly beneath them, slowing down and matching pace with the speed of the boat.

A scraping sound came from beneath the water; one of the creatures had its fin scraping at the bottom of the boat. It was becoming hard to focus with everything happening at once. One of the Llahtare was skimming above the water to the right of the boat; three more on the left looked as if they were floating through the air, gliding on their long pectoral fins. One came adjacent to the rest and severed the boats internal connection to the motor, while another swam up from underneath, ramming it. The boat flipped.

Sarah stole a split second to look over at Jules, whose face was struck with horror. It was now that she realized that they had not factored slowing down into their escape from these creatures. What would they have done once they reached the Island? They would have crashed either way.

Sarah had been flung forward off of the boat as it flipped, sending her careening over the surface of the water. As Jules disappeared beneath the waves, Sarah looked down, glimpsing what appeared to be an odd humanoid creature beneath her before crashing into the water, skidding on it as if it were concrete. She hit the water at a speed of at least one hundred fifty miles an hour. The world went dark around her. Sarah felt as if arms gripped around her waist before she lost all sense of feeling and surrendered herself to the gloom of her watery tomb. 

Author's Note

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