Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

“Be careful.”

He kissed her, then, seconds later, jumped into the flattened seas. From below, he gave her a final thumbs-up, then ducked under a wave and disappeared.

POOR VISIBILITY, Jason thought, diving lower. With broken rays of sunshine providing the only light, tons of particles were floating everywhere. Leveling off at a hundred and ten feet, he wished he’d brought a flashlight. Scanning in every direction, he saw no sign of the creature, no sign of anything. He swam north.

The ocean appeared empty, but with the poor visibility he couldn’t be sure. After ten minutes he didn’t see a single fish but came upon something considerably less exotic. Garbage, apparently from a construction crew: bloated cement bags, waterlogged cardboard boxes, and a punctured inner tube. What kind of people came out to the ocean to dump this stuff? As a cloud above blocked out the sunlight, he swam forward, clutching his harpoon gun tightly. Given the poor visibility, he could literally swim right into the creature if he wasn’t careful—he suddenly stopped.

There it was. Just ten feet away. Huge and black, just floating there.

It didn’t seem to be aware of him, perfectly still and not looking in his direction.

Ever so gently, he kicked backward, and it made no attempt to follow him.

He swam farther away, then stopped and watched it. It didn’t budge. Was something wrong with it? Was it dead?

Minutes passed, and it still didn’t move.

He swam toward it.

As he got closer, he realized: it wasn’t the creature at all. It was a sheet of black plastic, another piece of floating garbage. He swam past it and saw something else behind it, also large and black. More of the same? He couldn’t see it clearly, so he swam closer….

It was thicker than plastic. He swam closer. Much thicker.

He froze.

It was the creature. This time he was sure of it. It was bleeding heavily, Darryl’s harpoons no longer inside it, no doubt jarred loose by the violent plunge into the sea. The animal didn’t seem to be aware of him. It didn’t move or otherwise give any indication it knew he was near. Was it hunting him?

It suddenly jolted.

But then it didn’t move. It had just repositioned itself.

Jason didn’t understand. What was it doing? Why wasn’t it swimming for the land?

The water lightened, and it turned right for him.

He didn’t move, tried not even to breathe.

The Demonray held still—just twenty-five feet away.

Then the sun lightened further, and it swam toward him.

He kicked backward as hard as he could.

Like a bird in molasses, it just swam closer. Twenty feet away.

He positioned his harpoon, but it caught on his wet suit.

Fifteen feet.

He got it loose….

Ten feet.

Aimed…

The creature suddenly froze.

He didn’t fire. Breathing rapidly, he drifted lower and watched it, trying to understand. Why had it stopped? Was it afraid of the harpoon? Or were its sensory organs malfunctioning, perhaps in shock from the sudden environment change?

Watching it, Jason slowly glanced up and realized it was dark again, the sun gone.

Suddenly he understood. The animal was having problems with its vision. Its eyes hadn’t readjusted to the seawater and it was using the sun to see.

The light returned. As if flipped by a switch, the creature swam straight for him.

He kicked hard, swimming back and down, getting out of its path. The creature made no attempt to follow him. Like a slow-moving children’s ride, it continued straight ahead. And suddenly Jason saw what the Demonray was doing. It wasn’t just using the sun to see, it was following it. It somehow knew the sun’s position in the sky and was following it to get back to the land.

Jason drifted lower, raising the harpoon again. The creature was about to swim directly above him….

It slowly did, wings pumping, engulfing him in shadows. He aimed at its heart, his finger easing down on the trigger…. Whoosh! The harpoon hurtled through the water and plunged right into the white underbelly.

There was no reaction. Literally none. The predator continued as if nothing had happened.

Jason watched in amazement as it faded into the watery distance and disappeared.

Very soon it would reach the land. Not if he could help it. He swam up rapidly. They had to get there first.

“ IT’S FOLLOWING the sun.” Jason slammed the door closed. “It’s following the sun to get back to the land.”

Lisa raised a transmitter the size of a deck of cards, beeping slowly and steadily. “So I gather.”

“Jason.” Darryl pointed his finger at the sun. “If you’re right, look what it’s heading to.” On a line, he lowered his finger… to the southern tip of the looming black mountains.

“So we just follow it?” Lisa asked, looking down at the rolling sea.

Jason eyed her beeping transmitter. “Follow it and listen.”

THE CHOPPER inched forward at a snail’s pace. Half an hour later, the beeping still slow and steady, the machine was just fifty feet away from the mountains, suddenly draped in their shadows. “It’s gotta start coming up.” Darryl turned back to Jason urgently. “Get ready.”

Like magic, the beeping became faster.

Jason grabbed his rifle, opened the door, and looked down at the dark sea, trying to spot the creature.

The beeping grew faster still.

He aimed at the waves, trying to see it.

The beeping quickened again.

He swept his rifle across the waves, waiting.

The beeping quickened once more. Then stopped.

Jason paused, staring at the dark water. “Where is it? What happened?”

Lisa eyed the transmitter. “Is this thing still working?”

Darryl shook his head. “Let me see it.” She handed it to him, and he carefully looked it over. “It’s fine.” He turned back to the ocean. What the hell had happened? He scanned the waves with eagle eyes. There was no sign of the predator anywhere.

“It was rising toward us, wasn’t it?” Lisa eyed the mountains directly ahead. “That’s solid rock, right?”

Darryl hesitated. “Wait a second. There might be caves in there.” He’d forgotten, but Phil had mentioned it while going through the park’s papers on prescribed burns. A vast network of caves had existed in the area for as long as the redwoods. Apparently they’d been made unstable during the California Gold Rush in the late 1840s and never become a tourist attraction for safety reasons. Then something else occurred to Darryl. “ A cave. That could be the conduit it used to get to the land in the first place.”

Jason suddenly felt sick. “And now it’s trying to do it again. Darryl, we better get to the land side of these right now.”

“Jesus, you’re right….” The big helicopter rose straight up, shot out of the shadows, and whipped over the mountains on the other side. They prayed they weren’t too late.

“ IDON’T see it anywhere.” The helicopter sped over the mountain range, peaks and valleys of black rock without any vegetation at all. Next to Darryl in the passenger seat, Lisa had binoculars to her face. “No sign of it at all. There sure are a lot of caves, though.”

Darryl glanced down. “It’s gotta be inside one. We’re gonna have to go in after it.”

Lisa swallowed nervously.

In the back and ignoring this conversation, Jason saw they were rapidly approaching a familiar cornfield.

“Look at how much bigger the caves are getting, Jason,” Lisa advised from the front.

Jason peered out the other side. The caves were getting big indeed, some the size of one-car garages, others much larger. Regardless of size, the mountain was dotted with them.