A Time of Predators

Wow. Just kelp. He rode with the lift of the next wave, was free. But panic still nibbled at him as he thought of the huge leathery sea plants rising up from the ocean floor below him. Underneath him lay perhaps half a hundred feet of icy night ocean, filled with kelp like dead fingers, clutching like unknown sea beasts...

Thrashing, he was in it again, enwrapping foliage gripping him, dragging him down. He fought in blind terror against it, and then the first cramp hit him.

It was a giant fist that struck his churning stomach an unbelievable blow and jerked every muscle of his flaccid body with agony. He went down, was suddenly clear of the kelp except for the nude brushing of smooth stems; he caught one, hung on, dragged himself upward. But as he pushed his head free, to gulp air, another wave washed over, filling his mouth with water.

Another cramp struck him. He sank again, gasping, choking, getting more water into his lungs, flailing with arms and legs that sent out erratic shock waves. Heavy was drowning.

Blood from his abraded hide filled the water, attracting a lean torpedo shape from the open sea. It arced in toward the kelp, drawn by blood and those erratic movements which, to a shark, always mean that something is in trouble and hence is potentially food. It would not attack yet, of course, despite that deliciously maddening scent of blood. Despite the viciousness of its attacks, the shark is a cautious predator. It is thus that it has survived, unchanged, for 350 million years.

Eventually, of course, it would move in to feed.

In the cabin, Rick thought: Who needs them? Of course, he had to get up from his chair every few minutes to check each window, carefully, automatic in hand. But it v/as worth it to have no more worries about which one would betray him next. No loyalty, no guts, that had been the trouble with them all along. If he’d had the proper backing from that first night with Rockwell, none of this would have happened. Not that he was to blame for what had happened to Rockwell.

No, the real trouble all went back to Paula Halstead.

His dark, troubled eyes went over her note again. Goddamn that Julio! If he hadn’t given Rick the suicide note from Debbie’s purse — hell, if he hadn’t insisted on getting his hands on Debbie... Not Rick’s fault, what had happened to Debbie. None of it his fault.

please understand that I am doing this because of something intolerable in myself

See? In herself. Nothing about it being because of what had happened with Rick. No, she’d fallen for Rick the second she had seen him. That had happened, she had come, only because of Rick. Nothing else. That look of self-loathing he’d remembered from her face, that hadn’t really been there. She’d wanted it, man. From Rick. He’d turned heron, like he did Debbie and Mary and... and all the chicks.

But still, somehow, it seemed all to go back to Paula Halstead, to the note in his lap addressed to her husband. Back to Paula, and forward to him. For it all ended with Curt Halstead.

Rick made his round of the windows again. He was glad Halstead had gotten the others. Oh, Rick had the gun, once it was light he would make out okay, but he was glad about the others. Champ, last one you’d think was yellow, was the first one to break. Pretending to be chasing Halstead when really he’d been trying to get away.

Then Julio, yellow spic bastard. Going to run away, up the ravine, knowing that Rick wouldn’t shoot him. Only, Halstead had been waiting for him, in the darkness and the swirling fog.

And finally Heavy. Going to swim for it, he bet, after trying to foul Rick up with all that crazy talk about Halstead swimming in. Who the hell had he been trying to kid? That would have meant that a lookout posted along the beach would have warned them of Halstead’s arrival; it meant that Halstead had outmaneuvered Rick at tactics. That was wiggy, man. No damn teacher was better at tactics than Rick Dean. Sure, better at sneaking around in the woods, maybe, but...

But anyway, Heavy was gone. Halstead would have him by now.

That made it neat, tidy for Rick. Everybody gone except Debbie. Well, he hadn’t had anything to do with what happened to Debbie. No matter what she might claim, all he had done was walk out and leave her with the fellows. How could he have known what they would do to her? Besides, she’d put out for anyone; he bet she hadn’t even fought it.

Alter four. Dawn soon. Time to make his move. He stood up, shivered — it had gotten cold in the cabin, that was it — and went to the back door. Very silently he turned the key in the lock, eased the door ajar a hairline. Speed. Surprise. Catch Halstead unawares.