Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [78]
Edward was still pulling him back from the thing, trying to get Howard’s leaden fight-or-flight response to do something. Howard started to react, but far too sluggishly, too clumsily. He stumbled backwards over something in the thigh-deep water and an instant later was flailing on his back, his head underwater. Surfacing a moment later, spluttering for air, his legs scrambling to find a steady footing below, all he could see now was an approaching dark cave, riding up out of the shallow water at him like a freight train, a cave lined with stalactites and stalagmites of razor-sharp teeth and dangling tatters of rotting meat swinging between them.
‘OH NO!’ was all he could scream as the gliding mass of glistening grey hide finally came to an abrupt rest and the cave, easily six foot across, snapped shut round one of his feet. He felt a vice-like grip on his ankle, the tough leather of his combat boots compressed agonizingly tight as something hard and sharp pressed from the outside. Then the beast began shaking its head vigorously from side to side and he knew bones had to be breaking and splintering in his ankle as he swirled through the water.
Howard’s head was underwater. He felt pebbles, rocks and shells grind painfully up his back, and knew that meant the creature was now manoeuvring itself back from the shallows into deeper water.
He was holding his breath amid the tumbling underwater chaos … and, for a fleeting second, wondered why he was bothering to do so.
I’m gonna die. Surely better to breathe out now and drown than experience the agony of being ferociously dismembered by this thing?
Then, without warning the incredible pressure round his now-shattered ankle was gone. He flailed with his arms to right himself, to find solid ground on which to place his feet. He caught something with his hand, the rounded side of another ammonite shell. So that’s down. He tried to stand up and realized the creature must have pulled him further out than he’d thought in those few seconds. Finally his head broke the surface and he realized the water was chest deep.
The air was thick with screaming voices and spray.
And the first thing he saw was Chan, a few yards away, screaming abuse at the giant shark and jabbing his spear repeatedly at the creature’s nose. Its head snapped and swung from side to side, trying to get a grip on the fragile spear, trying to get past the spear to Chan, on whom it had decided to vent its frustration.
Howard waded through the water, painfully slowly, the chest-high sea in collaboration with the giant predator, wanting to slow him down. His one good foot kept slipping on the slimy rocks below, barely giving him enough purchase to make his way to shallower water. Behind him he heard Chan still hurling abuse and still stabbing and prodding, and the hiss and roar of water turned frothy white by the enraged shark thrashing in the shallows. Then he slipped again and fell under the water.
He felt a hand under his arm, then another, lifting him clear again. It was the robo-girl.
‘Remain calm,’ she said emotionlessly.
‘What … about … Chan?’ he found himself gasping.
She dragged him back to water shallow enough for him to crawl on his hands and knees. Then she let him go and headed back into the sea.
He turned and sat in the gently lapping waves, exhausted and vaguely aware of the burning agony of snapped and twisted bones down at the end of his leg. He watched Becks splashing through the water towards where Chan was still managing, incredibly, to keep the shark at spear’s length.
That’s a very big fish, was the last coherent thought his mind managed to put together before the world seemed to slump over on to its side.
∗
Liam watched the young man as he came round. ‘Leonard? How are you feeling?’
‘Hurts,’ he grunted thickly.
Becks leaned over him. ‘There