Copyright © 2023

by MATT SHAW

Matt Shaw Publications

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The characters in this book are purely fictitious.

Any likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

www.mattshawpublications.co.uk

With thanks to the following supporters of my work:

Steven Wexler, Gary Harper, Bernard Galpin, Amelia Sutherland, Karen Thomas, Jessica Shelly, Steve Chappo, James Herrington, Jean Kelly, Renee Luczynski, Cat Goy, Sharen Womack, Cipher66, Jennifer Brooks, Adam Searle, Mary Kiefel, Lucy Desbrow, Jill Rogers, Jacquetta B, Sophie Harris, Kristy Lytle, Melissa Potter, Jacqui Saunders, Nigel Parkin, Amber Chesterton, Billy Smith, Chris Peart, Jon Vangdal Aamaas, Peter Le Morvan, Gemma De-Lucchi, Julie Shaw, Marie Shaw, John Burley, George Daniel Lea, Donna Cleary, Lex Jones, Joanna Taylor, Karla Rice, Scott Tootle, Louise Turner, Kevin Doe, Andiboo, Sue Newhouse, Karen McMahon, Joy Boysen, Mason Sabre, Anna Garcia-Centner, Angela McBride, Debbie Dale, Kelly Rickard Jennifer Eversole, Cece Romano, Jennifer Burg Palfrey, Michele Fleming, Jessica Richardson, KT Morrison, Katharina Brüning

A massive, massive thank you for supporting my work and being a part of my Patreon page!

Want your name listed here?

www.patreon.com/themattshaw

DOLPHIN

Matt Shaw

For Frankie Yates who once text me:

I was just reading about how dolphins have been known to rape humans

And apparently they do super fucked up things

And I’m wondering why no one has written horror about rapist dolphins

Then I thought, if anyone would do that it would be you

Well done, Frankie. This is your fault.

A word from Matt Shaw:

Think of this as a dumb popcorn film. The sort of movie you watch with your brains switched off, whilst shoving handful after handful of popcorn into your cavernous, great gobs. You don’t take those films seriously because you know they’re stupid. This is kind of the same thing: This story is stupid. That’s not to say you won’t (hopefully) have fun whilst reading it but, yeah, you need to suspend your disbelief for this one. If you go in expecting a story based on fact, you’re probably going to get your knickers in a twist.

Although, I do look forward to that twat of a YouTube reviewer bitching that I dared write a book about a dolphin when I, myself, am not a dolphin.

AN EARLY INTEREST

1

JUST THE BASIC FACTS

‘A Bottlenose dolphin has between eighty and one hundred teeth that they use to grab, grip and secure their prey. They look friendly when their faces are poking out of the water with their mouths open. People turn to mush when they see them. Awww, look how cute it is. It’s smiling! Even with all those teeth on show, people think they’re smiling. All fun and games until one of them bites you though, let me tell you. You ever see that video of the eight year old girl in Sea-world? Dolphin bit her and damn near dragged her in the water and - yes - there have been reports of dolphins dragging people underwater. Not worried about a bite? Fair enough. You got to be pretty close to be bitten, right? What about if a dolphin rammed you? Plenty of reports for that too. These fucking things… They literally charge their prey - or you. They plow into you, snout first and - with the speed used? It doesn’t end well for the person on the receiving end. Example? One woman was rammed by a dolphin. She suffered six spinal fractures, three broken ribs and a damaged lung. The PTSD came later. That’s one dolphin.

‘Imagine a pod of them. A pod of hungry dolphins hunting for something to eat. These mammals are intelligent. They sometimes hunt in groups of 1,000 or more - all communicating with one another and devising new ways to trap and kill their prey. Take this for example, in Florida the dolphins which live in shallow waters… They have been observed using their tails to kick up mud in a circular formation in order to trap fish inside. Meanwhile, observed in Australia, other dolphins have been seen using sponges as tools to dig up prey from the seafloor. The scary thing is, these dolphins are able to communicate these tactics to other dolphins which means, they’re always improving their skills. They’re learning new things, they’re improving… But, we’ve always known they were smart. That’s why the US Navy trained them to find and retrieve equipment lost at sea and to identify intruders swimming in restricted areas… Got to wonder what the dolphins did if they ever found someone swimming somewhere off limits. Did the person make it back to shore? Got to wonder even more when you consider these bastards like to torture animals… At least, they like to torture their prey before they eat it. I guess, much like a cat. Think I’m talking shit? Observe a dolphin with an octopus. Now, in fairness, an octopus has a few tricks up its sleeves to use as a defence mechanism, so dolphins did need to be careful with them. How do they kill them? Well, the dolphin will repeatedly beat up the octopus by tossing it around both viciously and relentlessly so as to break the octopus into smaller pieces. Then, it eats. Well, sometimes.

‘Again, dolphins have been observed killing fellow mammals in droves. They use their beaks as clubs and they slash away with mouths open - using their teeth as cutting weapons. They are known to bludgeon porpoises to death by the hundreds. They don’t eat them. They kill them and move on. Not just other mammals either but their own kind. Yep. You heard that right. Sometimes adult dolphins kill the babies of other dolphins. The babies have been found with signs of severe blunt-force trauma, suggesting they were rammed. They also had multiple rib fractures, lung lacerations and soft tissue contusions. It was reported that one even had bite marks consistent with the tooth placement of an adult bottlenose. But, hey, it’s not just the babies they go for.

‘Male dolphins attack females. When a male wants to mate they not only chase the females, but they smack them around. They hit them with their tail, they charge them, bite them… Not just female dolphins either. They like to attack people. Once, a female surfer was out on the waves when she noticed a dolphin circling her. The circles got smaller and smaller and smaller until - WHAM! It purposefully knocked her off the board. She landed with a splash, it jumped over her and then, again, went back to circling her until it grew bored.

‘People think dolphins are cute and loving but, they really aren’t. Dolphins are assholes. They’re cold, calculating killers. Are you honestly telling me you want to get in the water with one of them?’

The kids shouted in unison from the back of the car. ‘YES!’

Mark sighed. He was hoping to have put them off with his little-known facts, if only to save some money but, nope, they both still wanted a ticket to get in the water with a dolphin for twenty minutes. Twenty-fucking-minutes and over a hundred dollars per kid. Like it wasn’t already expensive enough getting access to the park.

2

FAMILY HISTORY

Mark Edwards had never meant to be sharing custody with his ex-wife, Bex. Like so many other relationships, they were just another statistic but then, Mark wasn’t exactly surprised by this given his fuck-boy tendencies. For him, a perfect weekend used to be - a trip to the pubs, sink a few drinks, push on to a club, dance with a number of women whilst sinking more drinks and - then - back to whichever apartment belonged to the women that said “yes”. Given his disdain for the use of protection, always promising the women he was clean despite never actually having a test to prove as such, it was only a matter of time before one of the women got pregnant and, after that, only a matter of time before he asked a stupid question because he felt it was “the right thing to do”. The truth was, he and Bex were completely different people. She held a respectable job and rarely went out, certainly not to pick up strangers. The only reason that weekend happened was because she’d let her hair down and had one too many shots with her friends, celebrating a recent promotion. On the flip side, Mark had settled in a warehouse job which paid the bills but not much else. Given his lifestyle was more about catching up with his friends, even if that meant a night round their place with the cheapest bottles of booze they could find, he had no further career aspirations - not that his managers were eyeing him as having potential.

Mark’s relationship with Danny was mostly positive. He didn’t drink around him; he saw him every other weekend - as arranged with Bex - and he treated him as best as he could. His biggest downfall, also highlighted by Bex on more than one occasion, was his mouth and love of the most inappropriate words for a ten-year-old to be hearing. His relationship with his son was as much a shock to himself as it was to those closest to him. Rewind the years to before Danny existed and most, Mark included, had pegged him as the kind of man who’d pack up and run the moment he’d heard he was to be a father. To his credit, this never once came to mind. He promised to be there by Bex’s side, through thick and thin, and raise the child with her. He half-kept his promise. Their marriage lasted a year into Danny’s life.

Then there was eleven-year-old Luke.

Luke wasn’t Mark’s son. He’d only got Bex pregnant the one time - much to his own relief as he couldn’t realistically afford support for another kid too. Luke was Craig’s child with Craig being Bex’s partner now. It hurt Mark when Bex met someone else but, he couldn’t say anything because he’d known, throughout their marriage, he’d been a poor husband. He didn’t beat her, or anything like that. He was an idiot but not an animal. He just wasn’t as “present” as he could have been. He didn’t ask how her day was, he didn’t offer to cook for her, he didn’t do much around the house and yet - they both held down full-time work. He’d come home, put his feet up and crack open a can of beer. He’d load the games console and - that was him for the evening. Bex, on the other hand, would come home, tidy up around him, get their dinner and… It was no surprise when she instigated a divorce he did very little to fight against.

Seeing Bex with Craig hurt. The way she smiled at him, for instance, was the way she used to smile at Mark, at the start of their relationship when they were still getting to know each other. The way she’d cuddle into Craig, the same way she used to cuddle into Mark. Mark knew he and Bex weren’t right for each other but, he wished they could have been. That opportunity had long since passed. Life had moved on for Bex, and she deserved to be happy. Life had more or less come to a stand-still for Mark and, until he grew up, he deserved that. Still, so long as she was happy, that was “enough” for him and, he buried his jealousy deep down.

3

THE BIRTHDAY BOY

It was Mark’s weekend with Danny and his stepbrother, Luke. Forgotten by him, until he got to the house to pick the boys up, it was also Danny’s birthday. Mark could have sworn Bex got off on seeing the panic on his face when she reminded him of this forgotten fact.

‘You didn’t think to text me before I got here? Or, oh I don’t know, yesterday when the shops were still open?’

She’d laughed. ‘You haven’t forgotten have you? I would have thought you’d have written it down, after I had to remind you last year too.’ And that was when their conversation was cut off with the sudden appearance of a very excited birthday boy. He ran up to his dad - and as they always did - the pair High-fived one another. Luke appeared in the doorway and said hi but, he didn’t come over for a High-five. He was “too cool” for that since turning eleven and besides, Mark wasn’t his dad. Why would he high-five someone else’s dad? The only reason he went with Mark and Danny, on their weekends, was because he didn’t have a choice. Bex and Craig used this alone time to keep their marriage fresh and always arranged to do things with just the two of them, hotel breaks and the like. Mark had, before, pointed out this was kind of selfish of them. Surely they should be doing something as a family instead but, it was a comment born of jealousy and nothing more.

Thinking on his feet, without a gift for his son, was how the trip to the aquarium came to be. A day out for the birthday boy and a promise of doing whatever he wanted and fast forward…

Danny wanted to swim with the dolphins and, if Danny swam with them, then that meant Luke would have to as well because, Mark couldn’t exactly leave him out. That wouldn’t have been fair. But one hundred dollars per person? No concession for the fact they were both children? That was some fucking bullshit right there and, aware he’d promised his son “anything” - Mark was just grateful he had a credit card and potential of working overtime at a later date. That being said, they’d only seen the experience whilst browsing the aquarium’s website while he drove them there. With any luck, it would be fully booked, and his credit card would be safe. Well, safe until they got to the gift store at least but even so, he’d sooner spend that kind of money on something they could keep as opposed to something which lasted about twenty minutes.

Mark settled into the thought of the experience being full. ‘It is a Saturday. No guarantees you’ll be able to do it though so, keep that in mind.’

‘Okay…’ One word and yet, one word filled with excitement at the prospect of swimming with the dolphins. Mark almost felt guilty at wishing the experience full. Almost.

They pulled into the aquarium’s car park. Mark’s heart immediately sunk when he noticed how empty it was. ‘Fuck.’

‘Dad! You know you aren’t supposed to say that in front of us!’ Danny was genuinely mad at his dad for swearing. Luke was more laid back about it and always found it amusing. ‘And why did you swear?’

Mark couldn’t exactly turn around and say, Because it looks pretty empty here meaning the experience you want is available which, in turn, means my credit card is about to take a massive hit. Thinking on his feet, because it had served him so well before, he said, ‘My favourite spot has been taken.’

‘Is that it?’

Dolphins are popular “attractions” in such places. Mark still had a little hope he might have been able to get out of paying for what he perceived to be a disgusting rip-off, especially if the person behind the counter sided with him…

4

A GENEROUS GIFT

Mark was standing at the kiosk where he was being served by a pretty lady who’d already upsold them by another ten bucks thanks to what looked to be a poorly printed guidebook. ‘There you go, birthday boy.’ Mark took the booklet from the display stand and handed it to Danny. ‘Something for you to share with your brother.’

Danny excitedly took the booklet and started thumbing through the matte-pages. Most of the book was filled with crappy pictures with low resolution.  Beneath the images, a few typed paragraphs of what the picture showed. In the back, there was a lacklustre map with numbers dotted along the path. To the side of that, a key to show what each of the numbers represented. Little thought had been put into the brochure.

‘It’s his birthday?’ The cashier’s eyes sparked, and Mark noticed. Clearly she’d seen another opportunity to upsell.

‘It is! I’m ten today!’

‘Well, happy birthday.’ Quick as a flash, she turned to Mark and offered, ‘We have some extra experiences if you really want to make his day special.’

Mark smiled at her. Not a friendly, warm smile you’d flash to a friend but - more of a fuck you. Had the brochure been more interesting to look at, perhaps Danny might not have heard the lady. He immediately stepped up to the side of his father, ready to hear what the lady had to offer. In an effort to save his credit card, Mark jumped in first. ‘There’s one thing he wanted to do but, I’m guessing it’s probably the most popular thing here and sold out…’ When he spoke, Mark did some very unsubtle winks to the cashier in the hope she’d take the hint and play along.

‘Oh I don’t know. We could certainly take a look for you. You might be surprised.’

Danny was practically bouncing he was so full of excited energy. Luke loitered behind slightly, unsure whether he was going to be the same offered experience, given it wasn’t his birthday. Even though it was expensive, there was no way Mark would have done a ticket for Danny and made Luke sit by the side and watch.

‘Well, they want to swim with the dolphins.’ Mark thought of another possible way out of it. ‘Are they even old enough?’

‘You’d have to sign some additional waivers.’ The cashier tapped a few keys on what looked like a rather manky keyboard. Her eyes narrowed as she read the screen. Mark held out hope that she was merely pretending at this point, to make it look like she’d really looked it up for the benefit of Danny.

‘Yeah, it’s probably full so… Might have to come back and do it another day,’ Mark continued. Please, please, please take the fucking hint.

‘I’m pleased to say we do have some spaces!’ The cashier looked over the counter to Danny and smiled. When she glanced to Mark, the smile turned to one similar to his own “fuck you” face.

Danny’s face lit up with excitement. ‘Please, dad…. Pleaaaaaaase.’

‘Well, look, I don’t mind. It is your birthday but keep in mind - if we do this, I won’t be able to take you to the gift shop too so, it’s up to you. Toys or swim with the dolphins?’ Mark knew the gift shop would have been expensive but - it would have still been cheaper than the so-called experience. The joy from whatever chosen toy was picked would also - hopefully - last longer than twenty minutes.

‘Dolphins! Dolphins!’

Fuck.

‘I guess that’ll be two tickets for the lads to swim with… Ah wait…’ He turned back to Danny. ‘We don’t have your swim shorts…’

The cashier was quick to jump in, ‘That’s okay. They sell them at the gift store.’ That same “fuck you” smile seemed permanently frozen on her face at this point.

‘Well, thank you.’ His voice dripping in sarcasm, Mark said, ‘You’ve been very helpful today.’

The woman’s “fuck you” smile stretched a little wider as she rang through the transaction.

‘Thank you, dad!’ Danny hugged into his father’s side. Mark looked down at his son. Danny was grinning from ear to ear and, Mark couldn’t help but smile too.

‘That’s another two hundred and twenty dollars,’ the cashier said. Mark’s smile faded as he inserted his credit card into the terminal. As he punched in his numbers, the cashier pointed to the number “3” on a copy of the aquarium’s map, laminated and stuck to the counter. ‘If you want to head to this point, you’ll be able to get some swim shorts for your children. You can get an official park towel too, if you’d like, but there are clean towels for guests to use at the dolphin pool.’ The terminal auto-printed Mark’s receipt. She tore it off and handed it to him. He snatched it away and scrunched it up into his pocket. At his first opportunity, he’d be throwing that in the trash. He didn’t need reminding about what he’d spent.

‘Come on, kids, let’s go.’

As he walked away, the two nippers running out front and both buzzing with excitement, the cashier called after them, ‘Have a great day!’

Yeah, fuck you.

Mark quickened his step to catch up with the boys when - with no warning - he watched as Danny face-planted down onto the concrete after tripping over his own shoe-lace.

Luke immediately called out for help, ‘Mark! Danny’s hurt himself!’

Mark bit his tongue as he hurried over but, in head, he made a promise to himself that he’d never forget his son’s birthday again!

22 YEARS LATER

5

ALL WORK

‘No shit?’ Juan laughed as Dan recounted to him, the day he decided what he wanted to be when he grew up.

‘No shit. My dad took me to the aquarium with my brother, we swam with the dolphins and that was that. After the guide told us all about them, I decided I wanted a job helping them - and other sea creatures - when I was older. Had no idea what the job was exactly but, it didn’t matter. I just knew I wanted to help.’

‘And here you are.’

‘Here I am indeed.’

Thirty-two years after Mark had taken Danny to the aquarium for the first time, Dan was all grown up now and working as a marine biologist after years of schooling and studying. Whilst he had an interest in whales, Dan had spent most of his time studying dolphins - just as his younger self had promised all those years ago. It was a career move which made his dad laugh. Over the years, Mark had forgotten about the trip to the aquarium until he asked why his son wanted to be a marine biologist. It made him chuckle to know the impromptu trip to the aquarium played such a massive role in shaping Dan’s future. It also took the sting off the old credit card bill, which Mark had defaulted on several times. By the time I was done paying it off - I probably paid more than what your university cost thanks to the interest.

Dan was in Mexico, heading to a beach in Cancun with Juan - a colleague from the same research department. Dan had been working in Mexico for a couple of years now and loved it, not just for the marine life but for the people too. Everyone he met was warm and friendly, the weather was - of course - beautiful and, their cuisine was his favourite, even if it didn’t always love him back. Whilst the mood in the car was jovial, the reason for today’s trip down to a local beach was far from happy. There had been a report of a number of dolphins washed up on the beach. When asked if anyone had tried to get them back into the water, the news fed back that there was no point - all of them were already dead.

‘What about you? How did you get into the job?’

‘I was no good at smuggling drugs.’ Juan laughed, clearly mocking himself and his background. Where Dan had come from a good background, out in the States, Juan had a much tougher upbringing, surrounded by gangs and drugs. He couldn’t recall when he made the choice but - he was fully aware that, one day in his youth, such a choice would have been made: Sell drugs or push real hard at school to escape it all. He worked hard and never looked back. ‘Mind you, I’d probably have had a mansion by the ocean by now had I gone into that business instead.’ He momentarily drifted to another place, daydreaming about a mansion with a weed farm backing onto it. In his daydream, he was on a sun lounger with a beautiful wife. He was enjoying the sunshine, and her undivided attention whilst workers worked his crops. He sighed before - the daydream took a sudden turn and gunmen burst onto the property ahead of riddling his body with a spray of machine gun fire. Juan’s smile faded. ‘Or I’d be dead.’

‘It’s definitely fair to say this is a safer job.’ Dan glanced down to his phone. He was holding it in his hand as there was no cradle for the car. The phone itself was displaying a map to where they were headed. ‘Next left.’

Juan indicated to the left and slowed for the corner.

6

DEATH

Any other day and this beach would have been a beautiful spot for a romantic walk. The fine sand - brilliant white in colour - shone bright beneath the sun’s beaming rays. Each grain sparkled like a perfect diamond. Crystal clear waters gently lapped at the shoreline and - a row of palm trees stood tall on the opposite side of the road Juan and Dan had driven down. Any other day and this was picture perfect for a postcard boasting paradise. Any other day.

Scattered down the beach, a number of dolphins had been washed up. Given the lack of blood staining the clean sands, they hadn’t died here. All dolphins had the same injuries; their dorsal fins had been removed. It was a tragic sight which also stirred emotions of anger at the thought of who could do something like this to such a creature.

Along with Juan’s jeep, there were also a couple of police cars pulled up just off the road. The Sheriff was leaning back on the bonnet of his squad car, smoking a cigarette. With the fact that the dolphins had washed up on his beach, he was irritated. The irritation didn’t come from the fact they were dead. To him, they were just fish (even though they weren’t) and not important. He was pissed because now they were on his beach, it had become his problem. Whether he gave a shit about them or not, it was still illegal to kill a wild dolphin. Hell, it was even illegal to feed them, with the maximum penalty being $100,000 fine and a year’s imprisonment. The Sheriff’s life would have been a lot easier had they sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Dan showed his identification as he and Juan approached. ‘A grim sight,’ he said, stating the obvious.

The Sheriff shrugged. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and put it out with his boot. ‘I’m thinking shark attack.’ There were no hellos, no passing of other pleasantries - it was straight down to business. ‘I’ll write it up, we clear the beach and - everything’s fine.’

Dan frowned at the Sheriff’s attitude but wasn’t surprised by it. Juan had already warned Dan that animals weren’t exactly high on the list of the police department’s priorities. Not when they had to contend with the cartel and kidnappings on a near daily basis. Dan didn’t give a shit about their other work though. This was his job, and he took it seriously. ‘I can tell you without taking another step closer that this wasn’t a shark attack.’

‘Are you sure about that? It’ll be easier for all of us if it was.’

‘It would be, yes.’

The Sheriff smiled.

‘But’ Dan continued, ‘it isn’t a shark attack.’

The smile faded.

‘It’s rare for sharks to attack dolphins. When they do, it’s because the dolphin is alone, or young or sick… For sharks to attack a whole pod? That will never happen. Not in a million years. Also, if a dolphin sees a shark? They attack it with the whole pod. No, this wasn’t a shark kill. What we have here - at a glance - looks to be fairly clear-cut case of poaching and, for that, we’re going to have to launch an investigation - I’m sure you’ll agree.’

‘Are you sure? I still think it looks like a shark.’

Dan hesitated a moment. He didn’t want to pick a fight with the local law enforcement agency but, at the same time, he didn’t want whoever did this coming back and doing it again because they could. Whoever did this needed to be found and stopped. ‘Even if there were a number of sharks out there and they all teamed up and attacked these dolphins, do you really think they’d inflict the same wounds on each of the dolphins?’

‘Maybe…’

Dan shook his head in disbelief at how quickly the Sheriff was looking to dismiss this. ‘We’ll make a call and get the bodies picked up. Run a few tests and see what we’re dealing with but - you might want to talk to the coastguard and get them out there, looking out for signs of poachers.’

‘Big ocean out there, my friend.’

‘It is, yes. And once upon a time it used to be full of life but these days… Not so much. You’re either a part of the problem, or part of the solution. Which is it?’

The Sheriff sighed. ‘So what do we need?’

‘Like I said, first thing is to get the beach cleaned up and liaise with the coastguard… You want to put the call out, or do you want us to if you’re too busy?’ Dan had meant to keep things friendly but, it was hard to hide the dripping sarcasm in his tone.

‘I’m sure we can get in touch with the coastguard,’ the Sheriff said. Realising he was dealing with a jobs worth, he knew it was better to look like he was doing his bit to help with the case too. The last thing he needed was for more hot heads coming down to support this little prick because he wasn’t getting the necessary support.

Dan smiled. ‘Great. Nice to be on the same page.’ He pulled a pair of surgical gloves from his pocket and started down the beach, towards where the dolphins carcasses rested. Juan hesitated a moment, unsure whether he should be saying anything to the Sheriff too, such as introducing himself. Given the unhappy look on the man’s face, he decided against it and hurried after his colleague.

Out of ear shot he said, ‘I don’t think the Sheriff likes you.’

‘That’s okay. Feeling is mutual.’

‘Even so, probably easier to stay friendly with these people.’

‘And I will, so long as he does his job and lets me do mine. I’m not doing anything other than my job. Unless, do you think we should have let him put it down as a shark attack when clearly it’s something else entirely?’

‘No. No. It’s just… I don’t think we need to be sarcastic about things when we talk to him.’

Dan laughed. ‘It’s okay. Sarcasm doesn’t translate in Mexican. We can just blame it on my accent.’

‘No, no… It definitely translates.’

‘Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful in the future. Would you like for me to go and offer him a foot rub?’

‘You’re doing it again.’

Dan laughed again. ‘Me? Never.’

‘This is why we don’t like Americans,’ Juan said, half-joking and half-serious.

7

IN THE WOUNDS

The coastguard had reported back. The Sheriff told them to report directly to Dan. He’d told them it would save “valuable” time. What he didn’t tell them was, it was his own time he was saving. Dan didn’t care. It was easier to talk to the coastguard directly. At least that way, nothing would be “forgotten” when discussing the case. Unfortunately, the report was that they’d not seen anything untoward. There’d been some fishermen out on the waters, but they all had relevant paperwork and - none that were searched, had any signs of dolphins, or leftovers, onboard. With Dan’s own investigation, he’d figured this would have been the answer anyway given his closer inspection of the wounds and what he’d found.

Despite first appearances, the wounds showed the dorsal fins weren’t cut off with a blade. There were puncture wounds on some of the dolphins, close to where the fin had been removed. As for the wound itself - the fins had been ripped off; as though gripped by something and shaken apart in a vicious, attack from an animal. But what Dan couldn’t understand is - what animal would do this? More to the point, what animal could do this to a whole pod of dolphins? Sure, the mystery creature may well have taken one down but, the rest of the pod would have turned on it and with the speed with which they could move - the creature wouldn’t have stood a chance. Yet, there were no signs of the other creature having washed up on the beach. Nor were there signs of what it could have been stuck in the mouth of the dead dolphins from where they could have taken a bite. As for what could have done this, dolphins had very few natural predators. There were tiger sharks, dusky sharks, bull sharks and the great whites but - that was more or less it. And if one of those attacked a dolphin, it wouldn’t just remove a dorsal fin. There were many reports of dead dolphins being discovered where they’d been bitten in half.

‘You okay?’ Juan walked into the office with a paper bag of junk food, collected from a nearby stand out on the street. He’d walked in on Dan sitting back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling with a confused expression on his face. On first impressions, it almost looked like he’d had a stroke. Juan put the bag down on his own table and pulled the contents out. A bag of fries for him, a bag for Dan. A paper wrapped burger for him, the same for Dan. ‘Dan?’

Dan “came to”. ‘Sorry. Was in a world of my own.’

‘Telling me. I thought you’d had a stroke or something.’ He sat down and started to eat.

Dan looked at the food. ‘Really? You have great food out here and you come back with burger and fries?’

‘Thought you might be missing home.’

‘Ah…’

‘And I like burger and fries and you told me to choose so…’

‘Fair.’ He took a bite of his burger and pulled a face. Mexicans were great at Mexican cuisine, but their burger skills left a lot to be desired. He pushed it away. Fries for dinner.

‘Where were you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When I came in. You said you were in a world of your own. Where were you?’

Dan pushed a photograph of one of the dolphin’s wounds across the table, towards Juan. ‘Look at that and tell me what you see.’

Juan leaned to the photo. He picked it up and looked at it. ‘Is that a bite mark?’

‘It is. Recognise the puncture wounds?’

‘Not really.’

‘Puncture wounds look like the teeth marks of a dolphin.’

‘The mouth isn’t the same shape. Can’t be a dolphin. No dolphin has a mouth shape like that.’

‘No. They don’t, do they? Yet ignoring the shape, the puncture wounds…’

‘Dolphin. But that’s impossible.’

‘I know it is. And now you know why I was lost in my own little world, trying to imagine the impossible because - honestly - I have zero fucking clues as to what happened here.’

Juan stared at the photo a while longer. He slowly put it down and looked up to his friend and colleague with one question at the forefront of his mind. ‘Are you telling me there’s a new species of creature out there?’

‘I’m telling you I don’t know what is out there but… I know what the signs are pointing to.’

With a hint of excitement in his voice, Juan asked, ‘So what now?’

Dan shrugged. ‘We go fishing?’

THE FIRST ATTACK

8

THE FAMILY VACATION

The hired yacht rolled in the gentle ocean swell as, high above, the sun beat down on the blue waters. Another beautiful, peaceful day in Cancun. Until Evie’s scream broke the near silence.

Evie was eight years old and enjoying her first proper family holiday with her mum and dad. As a treat, her dad - Clive - had hired a boat so they could go out on the water. Evie’s mum, Jackie, had stayed back on the shore as, even with water this calm, she was prone to sea-sickness. Up until now the day had been going nicely. Clive and Evie had seen a few stingray and some other fish they didn’t recognise from anything seen back in the United Kingdom and the water was both calm and inviting. That is, until the dorsal fin broke the water’s surface.

Evie screamed again, ‘Shark!’

‘It’s not a shark! It’s okay. It’s not a shark.’ Clive moved to the back of the boat, to where his daughter had been standing. True to his word, the fin didn’t belong to a shark. A dolphin popped its head up and came closer to the side of the boat. ‘See! Just a dolphin! How cool is that?’

It might not have been a shark but, there was still something off about how the dolphin looked. Dolphins tended to have pointed mouths but, this one didn’t. It still “smiled” like other dolphins and the little pointed teeth seemed the same but - its mouth was flatter, similar in shape to a shark.

‘It’s got a funny mouth.’

‘It’s fine,’ Clive said. A fan of the open water, Clive never admitted to being an expert when it came to the various creatures found lurking in the water’s depths. For him, getting out on the water was more about getting away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life than it was studying the creatures, or even fishing them. It was his way of getting peace and quiet where he knew he couldn’t be disturbed. So, when this dolphin stuck its head up - he probably wouldn’t have even noticed the difference in mouth structure had his daughter not been there to point it out. Even so, it was - to him - still a dolphin and, just like other dolphins, it was still “smiling” and looked genuinely happy to see humans. ‘He’s cute, isn’t he?’ Evie wasn’t as convinced. ‘You should get in the water with it.’

‘What? No! I don’t want to.’

‘Once in a life-time opportunity. People pay good money to swim with dolphins and - look - this one wants to swim with you. What do you say? Do you want to get in with it?’

‘No.’

Clive hesitated a moment. Evie might not have wanted to get in with it but, with how peaceful the water was looking and how friendly the dolphin appeared - Clive couldn’t deny he was pretty tempted. Especially given how hot the morning sun was on his already burned skin. ‘You sure? I’m going to get in with it.’

‘I can watch.’

‘Okay.’ Clive kicked his flip-flops off before he pulled his shirt over his head. He tossed it back onto a nearby seat and perched himself on the yacht’s side. The dolphin responded by showing excitement, a nod of its head and a slap of a flipper against the surface of the water. ‘See - he wants me to go in too! You sure you don’t want to come in?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Fair enough.’ Clive lowered himself down into the unsurprisingly warm water - still with the thought that if he had water like this back home, he’d be down the seaside every weekend for a paddle, or swim. The dolphin swam away from the edge of the yacht. ‘Hey, where you going?’ To his relief, the dolphin didn’t swim too far away. It turned back to see if Clive was swimming after it. When he saw he was, it gave another slap of its fin. ‘Excitable little fella, huh?’ Clive called back, ‘Hey, Evie, get the camera and take a photo for me, yeah?’

Evie fetched her dad’s mobile phone from where he’d left it - thankfully within easy reach. Given the phone was on a UK network, and he’d been too tight to pay for data roaming, there was no service outside of a WiFi area but that was fine for Clive. He didn’t want his phone ringing every two minutes with work related bullshit. All the time he was out, enjoying Mexico, the phone was nothing but a camera to capture these happy moments.

Clive was still grinning like a child-come-Christmas as he reached the dolphin. With a slightly nervous hand, he reached towards the mammal. Bragging rights for when he got home; he’d swum with - and touched - a wild dolphin. Not many of his friends would have been able to say the same. ‘Cute little guy, aren’t you?’ As his hand neared the dolphin’s side, the smile promptly faded from its deformed mouth. Its bright eyes dulled in colour and - in an instant - became as “dead” as a Great White’s. Even in his excitement to be so close to the dolphin, Clive noticed the sudden - and alarming - change in its demeanour. ‘It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt…’ Before he could finish his sentence, the dolphin lunged forward and took Clive’s hand in a quick, single bite. Clive screamed in both pain and fear as blood immediately pumped from his tattered wrist’s stump. Evie also screamed having caught the moment on camera. Desperate to get back to the yacht to stop the bleeding, Clive turned and tried his best to swim back. With the blood loss occurring, fatigue set in within a few strokes and - he stopped dead, unable to go further. His daughter continued screaming as the dolphin started to circle her frantic dad with only the dorsal fin above the surface of the water.

The fin disappeared beneath the surface.

Moments later, Clive also disappeared with a final cry of pain.

Evie watched. There were no tears. Just eyes wide with horror as her young brain tried to process what had happened. ‘Daddy?’ For the briefest of moments, the water seemed calm. The briefest of moments only. In a sudden show of vicious violence, the waters became choppy with violent thrashing happening beneath the surface - mercifully out of Evie’s sight. Had the attack been happening at the surface, she would have witnessed her father being torn limb from limb in the frenzied attack. Moments were all it took for the once blue waters to turn red and - again - Evie screamed.

9

NOT ALONE

Evie was curled up in a ball, on the yacht’s deck. She wasn’t crying anymore, just cradling herself and regretting her lack of interest in how the yacht worked. Clive had offered to show her, hoping his enthusiasm would brush off on his daughter, but she’d preferred to sit next to him and look out at the world beyond. Now, all the different dials and knobs looked alien to her and she had zero clue as to how to operate any of it, not even the radio. As such, she was stuck - too scared to press the wrong thing and - in her head - sink the boat to the depths of the ocean. Her lack of knowledge didn’t matter though. Her dad had hired the yacht for only the day. When they failed to return to dock later, an alarm would be raised, and people would come looking for them. She wouldn’t be stuck out here forever; that’s what she kept telling herself. Soon she would be back on shore. Soon she would be in her mum’s arms. Soon she’d be back home in England, never to leave the country again - or set foot on a beach, let alone go into the water. Soon.

By staying down low too, Evie was hoping that the dolphin would get bored and leave as, the last she saw, it was circling the yacht over and over. Occasionally she would wonder if that time had already come and that the dolphin had swum off. Two things stopped her from checking: It might still be there and, a very real worry that she might see a part of her dad bobbing up and down in the water. Would he rise up again, or would the leftovers sink to the bottom? She didn’t know. For all she knew, there were no leftovers. His whole body, consumed by the dolphin but… Was the kill because it was hungry? Or was the kill for sport? Again, she didn’t know. She tried to steer her mind elsewhere; easier said than done. Whenever she closed her eyes all she could see was the choppy water as the attack had been happening - and the blood. Her father’s blood. Her eyes welled again and, before she knew it, she was crying once more.

Bump.

Evie’s heart skipped a beat as something hit against the side of the yacht. From where she was curled up, she couldn’t see over the side. Her world consisted of the floor of the yacht only, and the blue skies above. But her mind? Her mind had every nightmare possible, made that much stronger in the knowledge that it couldn’t have been the yacht rocking up against land. They’d come too far out to sea for that to be the case.

Bump.

‘Leave me alone.’

BUMP.

‘Stop it!’

BUMP!

‘LEAVE ME ALONE!’

…

…

…

…

Bump.

Unable to ignore it, Evie pulled herself up from the floor and peered over the side of the yacht just as…

BUMP.

The dolphin turned away. It swam a few feet away before it about turned. It paused a moment as its still-black eyes fixed upon Evie’s alarmed face staring straight back. A “smile” spread across its mouth and, it thrust forward with a powerful flick of its tail. Evie screamed as the dolphin slammed into the side of the yacht. Unlike the previous “hits”, this one was much harder. The force rocked the boat and knocked Evie down onto her arse. By the time she got back up, the dolphin was already a few feet away and lining up another “shot”.

‘STOP IT!’

The dolphin rammed the side of the yacht with another blow hard enough to knock Evie off balance. Unseen by Evie, just beneath the surface where nose met yacht, the side of the hull had already formed a crack.

‘LEAVE ME ALONE!’

The dolphin lined itself up for another pass.

10

QUIET

Dan looked out to the horizon. Everything out there - as far as the eye could see - was calm and as still as the ocean normally was at this time of year. For all intents and purposes, despite the carnage which had washed up on the shore, it was a beautiful day out there.

Dan was at the helm of a speedboat he’d hired, along with Juan. Whilst Dan’s eyes were on the horizon, looking for he didn’t know what exactly, Juan was scrolling through his social media account on his phone, clearly bored. ‘How long are we going to stay out here?’ Without knowing exactly what they were looking for, or what to expect, there was no obvious answer to the question. As such, Dan said nothing. Juan continued, ‘Because, you know, I have plans next week…’ Dan didn’t think there would be anything obvious “out there” but, given the devastation to that one pod, he figured it certainly didn’t hurt to come out and patrol the waters for a while. Especially as it had been so long since they’d done just that. ‘I was thinking last night,’ Juan went on, ‘what if it was poachers?’

‘It wouldn’t explain the teeth mark.’

‘The teeth marks don’t exactly explain themselves though, do they? They looked like bite marks of a dolphin, but the mouth size was definitely not that of a dolphin so… What if someone faked it?’

‘Faked it?’

‘You know, to make it look like a dolphin.’

‘Then surely they’d actually get the mouth shape right?’

‘Not necessarily. They went with something we’ve not seen before and - here we are, out on the water looking for I don’t know what. Meanwhile the poachers are back on dry landing and laughing.’

‘It sounds like a stretch.’ The problem was, whilst it sounded far-fetched, it didn’t sound entirely impossible either. Dan didn’t admit as much though. For him, there was a certain level of excitement about the possibility of there being a new creature out here. Something which, as of yet, hadn’t been discovered. After all, the oceans were vast with some bits so deep they’d barely been explored yet. What if there was something in those areas? Although that would then bring up the question: Why are they only just now being discovered? If they needed the depths to survive then they wouldn’t have been in a position to attack a pod of dolphins. Anyway, if it were poachers… They’d have fishing boats and those were much easier to spot and investigate.

‘I don’t know. Probably should have let the sheriff close this one. Not sure it’s something we will ever find an answer to. The old saying, needle in a haystack comes to mind…’

Dan continued surveying the horizon, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The saying “a needle in a haystack” was apt and, as the morning hours slipped away, so too did Dan’s hope in finding something which could have explained what happened to the pod of washed-up dolphins. ‘You know, after you left last night, I looked at the bite pattern closer. Puncture wounds matching that of a dolphin bite but with a mouth-shape of a Great White.’

Juan laughed. ‘Okay so we’re looking for a dolphin with a mouth similar to an entirely different species or we’re hunting a Great White with the teeth of a dolphin. Honestly, out of the two, I’m not sure which would be freakier. Anyway… That just makes me realise how bullshit this whole thing is. You wouldn’t find a dolphin with a shark mouth, and you wouldn’t find a shark with dolphin teeth. It’s just not possible to get that level of deformity without two entirely different species breeding. Don’t even get me started on how many ways that isn’t possible.’

‘I know. I know but… What if.’

Juan couldn’t help but to laugh again. ‘That’s how desperate we are now? We’re going to solve what happened to those dolphins by playing a game of what if?’ He shook his head. ‘Let’s not go down that route. Come on, let’s go back.’

‘I’m just saying that new things are getting discovered all the time…’

‘… That doesn’t mean we’re about to find a cross-bred shark-dolphin. A shark is a fish. A dolphin is a mammal. Even if they did somehow manage to fuck… Off-spring wouldn’t be produced. It’s not possible. Although, fucking hell, the world would be a scary place if it was. Only last week I was reading a story about a man who was caught inside his pet dog. Imagine if he hadn’t been found out and was still fucking his dog. Then, one day, the dog gave birth to this human-dog-hybrid-thing.’ Juan laughed as the mental images played through his mind. ‘Anyway - not possible but you have highlighted how poachers could have faked the killings. They have a jaw of a Great White, they removed the teeth and attached teeth from a dolphin. Now all they have to do is rip the fins off the dolphins and “bite them” with this prop-jaw and hey-presto, we’re stuck out here on the water for hours having ridiculous conversations.’

‘Well if this does turn out to be something new, I’m the one who is naming it given you’re not even willing to give the idea the benefit of the doubt.’

‘And that’s fine. I look forward to you revealing Sharkphin to the world. Or would you fall it a Dolark?’

Dan laughed. ‘Actually, I quite like Dolark.’

‘Ah see now… If you name it that, technically I came up with it. Don’t forget to credit me. Come on, can we please go back?’

Dan started the boat’s engine with the press of a button and pushed on. He didn’t go back towards the shore though. The day was still young and - with nothing else to do - he figured they may as well go up and down the coast.

‘Can I be there when you explain your theory to the sheriff?’

‘You kidding me? The sheriff probably already believes sharks and dolphins can breed with one another. He’ll probably put an APB out on it for us.’

Juan laughed.

DAY TURNED TO NIGHT

11

MISSING

The yacht had been taken back to shore for closer inspection, but not before Search and Rescue had arrived at the point where it had been initially found. The damage to the hull had been bad enough to almost entirely sink the yacht and yet, for no apparent reason. There were no rocks close to where the yacht had been discovered. There were no other damaged vessels nearby, suggesting a collision.

The yacht had been confirmed as the one hired by Clive, and his daughter. As of yet though, there were no signs of either missing person; news which brought no comfort to Jackie, who’d raised the alarm soon after her husband and daughter failed to come back.

Whilst Jackie had wanted to go out to where the yacht had been found, she’d been taken down the station instead. Standard practise; the investigating officers wanted to ask her some questions and see if she knew anything which might have helped them out, with regards to her partner’s whereabouts. She could have saved them all time and told them everything she knew at the beach but, the officers were insistent even though - all she knew was they hadn’t come home.

‘And how would you describe your relationship with your husband?’

Jackie couldn’t help but show her surprise at the question, followed promptly by her confusion. ‘What does this have to do with anything?’ The officer smiled. He was trying to ascertain whether Clive was missing, or whether he’d simply not come home because he had alternative plans in his head, for whatever reason. When the officer failed to elaborate on why he was asking the question, Jackie answered, ‘It’s fine.’

‘Fine?’

‘Same as any marriage, I guess.’

‘No arguments before he disappeared?’

‘No! Why would we argue? We’re on vacation.’

The officer smiled again. ‘You’d be surprised. So as far as you’re aware, everything was okay between the two of you?’

‘Yes! Are you suggesting he disappeared on purpose?’

‘We’re simply looking at this from all possible angles.’

‘And one angle is he faked their deaths?’

‘Again, you’d be surprised as to what some people have done in order to get out of an unhappy marriage.’

‘It’s not an unhappy marriage! Our marriage is fine.’

The officer scribbled a note.

‘Look, is this even necessary? They could be out there still - in trouble… And you’re sitting here asking me pointless questions.’

‘We have people out there looking, don’t worry.’

‘And I should be one of them.’

‘You’re in the best possible place. Let us do our job.’

‘Hard to just sit there and do nothing when this is the level of you doing your job!’

The officer’s smile broadened and then slowly faded as he resumed his questions. ‘So you think everything was okay in your marriage…’

‘I know everything was okay in my marriage.’

‘… Was your husband an able seaman?’

‘You mean, does he know how to handle a little boat?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes. In England, he has his own little boat on the River Hamble. It’s not quite as nice as the one he hired for the day here but, a yacht is a yacht.’

‘You’d be surprised. And what was his mood when he set off?’

‘Again, we’re on holiday…’

‘So you’re saying his mood was good?’

‘Yes! Excited! Happy! I don’t know what you want me to say. We’re on vacation and he was looking forward to getting out on the water. He was happy, and so was Evie.’

‘So there’s no external factors in his life which might be causing him some stress?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Finances, work… Anything like that.’

‘As far as I am aware, everything is okay. Is this really necessary? I feel like we’re wasting time. I’ve already told you. My husband was happy. He was excited to go out on the water. My daughter was the same. Time came for the yacht to be returned and they didn’t show. I waited some time before raising the alarm, in case they simply lost track of time. That’s it. Next thing - you found the boat with damage to the hull suggesting a collision…’

‘Well we’re not sure what that’s suggesting at the moment. We’re investigating.’

‘Okay well, it’s how it looks. So something happened and they somehow ended up in the water.’

‘There was no sign of damage to the radio.’

‘So?’

‘If he ran into trouble, he would have radioed for help.’

‘Maybe he didn’t think it was that bad.’

‘There would have been a point in time when he realised it was that bad.’

‘They could have thought there’d be able to get back. When they realised they couldn’t, they put on life jackets and…’

‘All life jackets are on the yacht still. They weren’t wearing any.’

Jackie went quiet. Clive was a nightmare when it came to getting him to wear life jackets. He didn’t like how constrictive they felt but, would he really have left his daughter remove hers the moment they were out of sight of the hiring station? Was he really that irresponsible? If all life jackets were accounted for, it suggested he was.

‘My baby is out there without a life jacket?!’

The officer said nothing.

‘But she isn’t a very good swimmer…’ Jackie broke down. The officer pushed a box of tissues across the table. There was nothing else to say as Jackie’s mind started playing through the worst-case scenarios, unaware that the truth was far darker than anything she could have imagined. After a while, she asked, ‘What am I supposed to do now?’

‘Now we will take you back to your hotel. If we have any news we will reach out to you there.’

‘I’m due to fly home in a couple of days. What am I supposed to do?’

‘If I were you, I would contact your airline directly and speak to them.’

Jackie nodded. ‘Okay.’

As the officer stood up to show Jackie the way out, the door to the interrogation room opened and the Sheriff walked in with a glum look on his face. His eyes were fixed directly on Jackie in such a way that her heart first skipped a beat and then sunk heavily. This wasn’t a man with good news to share.

12

MOSTLY MISSING

Jackie was standing by the table in the mortuary. What the police believed to be the remains of her husband lay beneath a sheet, temporarily hidden from view. At this stage, Jackie feared the worst but hoped they were wrong. Not just because she didn’t want it confirmed that her husband was deceased - meaning there was a strong likelihood her daughter was too - but because of the state the body was in. Or rather, what they’d found of the body. From the lump on the table, Jackie already knew they’d only found a part of the body.

The Sheriff was standing next to her. Standing at the other side of the table, a nurse was there. A sympathetic look on her face, it was her job to pull back the sheet to reveal what needed identification. Once the nod was given, she would then cover the body back over again - unless instructed otherwise. Given the state of the body, she was fully expecting to be covering it back over again.

‘Are you ready?’ The Sheriff hated there was no easy way of confirming that this was her husband. It would have been much “nicer” had he been able to tell her that it was. From there, she would have had the choice as to whether she looked although, he would have strongly advised against it. It’s better to remember him as he was and not for…

Was Jackie ready? It was a weird question because she would never be ready for this. There was no choice in going through the motions so she would get it done as quickly as possible, if only to get it over with, but she would never be ready. She nodded.

On cue, the nurse pulled back the sheet. At the sight of what lay beneath, Jackie’s heart thumped one hard-hitting, heavy beat and then seemingly stopped for what felt like an eternity to her. On the table, there was a lower arm, complete with the watch Jackie had bought Clive several Christmases again. That was it. There was nothing else to be seen.

‘I bought him the watch. It was a Christmas present.’

‘Are they are other marks you might recognise?’

‘Can you roll it over?’

The nurse, already gloved up, turned the lower arm onto its back so that it was palm-up. On the wrist, there was a small mole which was slightly raised up away from the skin. Jackie pointed to it and nodded. The Sheriff gave the nurse a nod and she covered the remains back over before Jackie had even registered the little pin-prick bite marks close to where the limb had been ripped from the rest of the body.

To her own surprise, Jackie didn’t burst into tears and nor did she scream for her dead husband. Instead she stood there, not moving, staring down at the sheet. It hadn’t actually stopped but, to her, it still felt as though her heart was refusing to beat. A minute or so passed. ‘And he couldn’t have still survived?’

‘The blood loss would have been major. He would have most likely gone into shock and drowned if…’ The Sheriff’s voice tailed off.

‘If…’

‘If he wasn’t found and helped immediately.’ The Sheriff’s initial sentence wasn’t going to end in such a “friendly” manner. Initially, he was heading in a darker direction which would have been far more upsetting for Jackie to hear: If whatever attacked him didn’t eat him.

‘But another boat might have been there…’

All the Sheriff could say was, ‘We’ll keep searching.’ For that, they had no choice anyway. Whilst his remains might never be found, there was still the big, fat question mark over the daughter’s head although it was fair to say the investigating officers had already figured her as deceased too but, for now, they’d continue the search.

‘So I go back to the hotel?’

‘We can get someone to take you back, yes.’

‘And I just wait.’

‘I’m afraid there’s not much else that can be done at this stage but, we have a lot of manpower out there searching.’

‘Thank you.’ It was weird thanking a person in these circumstances. It wasn’t like he’d just handed over her change or helped her carry some bags. He was out there looking for signs of life, or two dead bodies… Or what remained of them at least. Jackie never once thought she’d be saying thank you for something like this.

‘Did you need a minute with your husband?’

Jackie couldn’t help but laugh through bemusement. Had the rest of her husband been present, she might have wanted a few minutes to say goodbye but - this was an arm. This wasn’t her husband. She shook her head. ‘Can we go, please?’

‘I’ll get my colleague to drop you back.’ And, with that, he escorted her out of the room and into the hospital’s quiet corridor.

Juan and Dan were standing in the corridor, close to the wall. They weren’t here to see the Sheriff, nor Jackie. They were here for the remains, having already been called to come down and see as part of their own investigation. The Sheriff didn’t even acknowledge them as he walked with Jackie towards the hospital exit. Dan and Juan waited until they were almost out of sight before they entered the very same room the Sheriff had come from.

13

A NEW SPECIES

There was no mistaking the teeth marks. They were the same found on the carcasses of the beached dolphins the day before. Whatever killed them also attacked this man. The fact the body was now a person further stamped down on the theory that it could have been poachers faking the kills in order to mis-lead any potential investigation. At least, in Dan’s head that was the case. ‘Fair to say we’re dealing with a new species then.’

‘Could still be poachers.’

‘Killing a person?’

‘You’re in Mexico now. You walk in on any illegal business; they don’t tend to chase you off.’

In fairness, that wasn’t a “Mexican” thing. Criminal gangs were capable of some pretty evil things in any part of the world but even so, Dan couldn’t help but feel this was a lot of effort for some fishermen to be going through. Even if they had gone to this much effort, it still didn’t explain how they managed to kill a whole pod of dolphins. Dolphins are notoriously fast. The poachers might have killed a few of them but the rest would have easily gotten away. That is, unless there are several boats out there - as part of the gang. But if that was the case…. They’d have been attracting attention to themselves… Dan found his head spin with all the arguments and counterarguments going round in his head. The truth was, he wished this was a clear case of poaching because the explanation made sense. As it was, he was potentially looking at a new species of “whatever” and, no matter what angle he looked at it from, none of it made sense. Dolphins can be sexually aggressive and attack others, and have been known to do so, but a Great White? Would a dolphin ever really risk that? Even if it had, and it did stay until completion… There is no biological way that shark could have become pregnant! Yet, this is exactly what looks likely to have happened and something he will have to explain to others which offered up a whole new kind of headache.

The door opened and the Sheriff walked back in. ‘So what are we looking at? A shark attack?’

A shark attack would have been another easy answer but, in all good conscience, Dan couldn’t go with it. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know? We have an arm. We have teeth mark. Looks like a shark attack to me.’

‘The puncture wounds. They don’t fall in line with a shark.’

‘Then what? An angry tuna?’ The Sheriff laughed at his own joke.

‘A dolphin.’

The Sheriff’s laugh stopped dead. A bemused look fell upon his face. ‘A fucking dolphin? Are you trying to take me for some kind of idiot?’

‘No. That’s what the puncture wounds are of. I don’t understand it myself… Especially because - on the dolphins we found on your beach… The bites were that of a Great White in size shape but, again, with the puncture wounds of a dolphin…’

‘So you’re trying to tell me that a dolphin and shark bred and now we have some of their crazy off-spring out there eating people?’

‘That’s just it. They can’t breed. One is a fish; one is a mammal. The biology doesn’t work.’

‘They still have a penis and a vagina. You saying it can’t be possible?’

‘Is your dog pregnant?’ Dan asked, frustrated with the Sheriff. The moment the words escaped his mouth he regretted them. He’d not done anything to break the law, but he knew it wasn’t smart to piss off the Sheriff, and that included insinuated that he fucked his dog. Juan knew this wasn’t smart too and took a step back in an effort to distance himself.

To Dan’s relief, the Sheriff didn’t understand what he was getting at. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t have a dog.’

Dan changed the subject. ‘It is entirely possible for a shark and a dolphin to engage in sexual activity. Highly unlikely but not impossible. That being said, it is not possible for them to then breed. Their biologies are entirely different.’

‘So what is out there doing all this then?’

Dan fell silent. ‘The realistic answer is, we’re dealing with a new species we’ve not yet encountered. I can’t tell you if it is one, I can’t tell you if it is a handful. At this stage, I just do not know and - trust me - I wish I had more answers for you.’

‘So what am I supposed to tell people?’

‘Nothing. You tell people nothing. In the morning, Juan and I will be back out on the water and see what we can find but - in the meantime… You say nothing.’

‘Potentially looking for one little fish in a big ocean? And how do you think you’re going to be doing that?’

NEW DAY, SAME OCEAN

14

OPEN WATER

New day, same water.

Juan and Dan had taken a fishing boat out to the same stretch of water where the body part of the missing husband had been discovered. Search and rescue had already moved on, satisfied there were no other body parts waiting to be found on the seabed. Instead, they were following the current. Dan was less interested in finding half-masticated corpses and more interested in getting a glimpse of whatever creature was doing this. So - he’d opted to set up in the place of the last known encounter with a hope that - like a shark - it was territorial. If it was, there was a good chance it would be back this way. In an effort to entice it to them, Dan was sitting at the back of the vessel, chumming the waters with stinking fish guts. This was a good, tried and tested method of attracting sharks and, this creature was behaving in a similar way to a shark so - all being well, it wouldn’t take much to bring it. The only downside to this was the stink of putrid fish guts, made only somewhat bearable with the use of a menthol vapour-rub smeared just beneath Dan’s nostrils.

‘You look like you have a streaming cold.’ Juan didn’t give a shit about the smell. He’d grown up on a farm, outside the city, so was used to foul scents.

‘Rather that than breathe this shit in.’

‘You think it will show up today?’

‘No idea.’

‘Decided on a name if it is a new species?’

‘Honestly, at this stage, I just want to know what it is.’

‘You think this will work?’ Juan was full of questions today but, that was his way whenever he was bored. He would fill his time with asking question after question and, half the time, he didn’t even stop and listen for the answer before he was already contemplating the next thing to ask. Dan didn’t answer this particular question because he didn’t actually think it would work. There were clear signs of this creature being aggressive but, nothing which suggested - so far - that it had actively been hunting in order to feed. Dan’s only hope was that the sudden introduction of fish guts might - at the very least - attract it over to them out of nothing more than curiosity. Dan’s refusal to answer the last question had a benefit to it in that it also stopped Juan from asking anything else. Instead, Juan had gone back to surveying the horizon. Despite the dead dolphins, despite the missing girl, despite the half-eaten man - it really was beautiful out there during the day. It was a different story at night: The sounds of the water seemed to change and, if a person were to concentrate hard enough, they could - instead - hear the many whisperings of all those souls who’d drowned at sea. Day time was beautiful, night-time was haunting. ‘Do you ever get creeped out by the ocean?’

‘Creeped out? What do you mean?’

‘Like, not now I mean but… At other times. I can stand on a beach at night and look out at the sea. It will feel entirely different than when I look out at the same spot, when the sun is up. At night… There’s, I don’t know, a creeping sense of dread. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I start to imagine how many people have lost their lives here. Like, I can feel them staring back at me.’

Dan hesitated a moment. ‘So - tell me - at night, when you get this feeling… You’re not, by any chance, having a smoke are you? Or maybe you’re drinking something a little on the strong side?’

Juan laughed. ‘Nah. Sober and straight thinking. Just creeps me out.’

‘Well, no, I can’t say I’ve ever had that feeling. To me, the ocean has always fascinated me. I look at it and find myself wondering how many secrets it has. What else is lying beneath the surface, waiting to be discovered. We, as a species, like to think we know everything but - really - there’s so much more that we don’t know… The oceans are a great source of the unknown. Case in point? We’re out here today, looking for something which has never been documented before. So, no, I don’t get creeped out.’

‘Would you ever go exploring the ocean at night?’

‘Sure. See different things…’

Juan laughed. ‘See, I wouldn’t. I’d be imagining the lost souls drifting towards the boat in the hope of finding salvation. I can even imagine them reaching up - working together - and pulling the boat down…’

‘Okay, are you sure you’re not smoking anything when you’re having these thoughts?’

Juan clicked his fingers and pointed out to the sea behind where Dan was perched. ‘Fin. Fin! We’ve got a fin!’ He grabbed the binoculars around his neck and looked out towards the fin as Dan turned to have a look for himself. From the distance they were away from the fin, it was possible to say that it was a shark as opposed to a dolphin but, not possible to tell the species. Having never seen the creature they were looking for; it was also impossible to say whether this was the animal they were hunting. They didn’t know if the mystery creature was more dolphin than shark, or the other way round.

‘Well?’

‘I can’t tell.’

The fin disappeared beneath the surface as it continued towards where Dan had momentarily paused chumming the waters.

15

BENEATH THE SURFACE

Both Juan and Dan were standing on the side of the boat, watching the waters intently to see what had come to pay them a visit. When the shark came closer still, Dan recognised it as a Tiger shark; one of the most aggressive species of sharks, and one which is known to attack humans. Despite the potential ferocity of the species, this wasn’t what they were looking for. Its marking were normal, its size was average for its type - more importantly - its teeth were also as expected in such a species. A beautiful - and potentially dangerous - fish, nevertheless.

The two men watched as the shark investigated the chummed area. Once it was satisfied there was nothing of note there, it circled back around and started to swim off into the distance with only its dorsal fin above the water’s surface.

‘And he is just one of the reasons I don’t go out too deep if I come swimming.’ Juan knew shark attacks were rare from his studies but, that didn’t mean he was stupid enough to try his luck. Whilst many of his friends grew up with a passion for surfing, he much preferred sitting on the beach with a book in one hand and a cold beer in the other. This may or may not have had something to do with reading Jaws one too many times.

‘You know, in the United States, a person’s chance of getting attacked by a shark is 1 in 11.5 million. And here a person’s chance of getting killed by a shark is less than 1 in 264.1 million.’

‘Yet - what is it they say? Someone has to win the lottery. I’ll stay on the boat, thanks. Safe up here.’

Dan couldn’t help but laugh. Did he want to be attacked by a shark? No. But with statistics so low, he knew he’d have to be really unfortunate to find himself in such a position and, he refused to live his life always believing the worst-case scenario was going to be coming true. Anyway, even with all this talk of shark attacks, nothing could take away the point that, this really was a beautiful fish. For Dan, whenever he saw something like this out in the wild, he couldn’t help but feel privileged and…

‘FUCK!’ Juan visibly jumped, as did Dan, when the dorsal fin suddenly disappeared beneath the waters. This wasn’t a case of the shark swimming to a lower depth but rather, something pulled it under - and with such a force that there was no struggle on the shark’s behalf. A moment later and, the water turned red. ‘Did you see that?’

‘I did.’

‘Did you fucking see that?!’

‘I did!’

‘What the hell was that?’

‘No idea but I would hazard a guess and say… It’s what we came out here for. Grab the camera.’

Juan hurried over to where they’d piled their equipment. The pair knew that sometimes sightings were so fast that you could blink and miss it so - the camera was already out of his protective case and resting on the side, ready to be used. Camera in hand, he turned back to the waters - the sight of the attack - but all was still. ‘Where is it?’

‘I can’t see anything.’ The waters here were darker than closer to the shore, making it hard to see if there were even any shadows of something lurking beneath. Both men squinted towards where the attack had happened and watched for signs of life. ‘There’s no feeding frenzy. Whatever made the kill, it wasn’t for food.’

‘Sport?’

‘I… Guess?’ Dan sighed. ‘We’re not going to see anything from up here.’

‘Are you seriously suggesting we get in the water? This is like one of those really bad horror films where you find yourself shouting at the characters on the screen because they’re that stupid.’

Dan hurried back to their equipment and grabbed a Go-Pro. The small action-cam had already been set up in its waterproof housing and attached to a long selfie-stick. In a quick motion, Dan extended the stick to its maximum length as he took it back to the side of the boat. ‘Sync up to the camera.’ He thrust the camera down into the ocean and pointed it towards the location of attack as Juan took his phone out. A good benefit of these cameras was their ability to be synced up to mobile phones, allowing the phone to be used as an external monitor. There was a slight delay as the phone synced up to the camera. Then, the camera’s footage appeared. ‘Show me.’ Juan walked over to Dan. Standing next to him, Juan positioned the phone so that both men could watch the screen. Just as everything appeared still on the surface of the water, down below seemed eerily calm too. ‘See anything?’

‘Nada.’

‘Shit…’ Dan started manipulating the stick so as to change the Go-Pro’s filming direction. Still there was nothing obvious on screen. ‘Where are you?’ Unable to see anything on Juan’s mobile, Dan took his eyes off the screen and looked back to the water’s surface. ‘I’m guessing its already…’  Before Dan could finish his sentence, the deformed dolphin leapt out from the water. Both men stood, opened mouthed, as it effortlessly somersaulted over the boat. It all happened in the blink of an eye but, by the time the dolphin splashed down on the other side, only one man was stood watching…

Dan jumped the moment he noticed the bright red blood ejaculating from Juan’s neck stump. The headless body stumbled towards him - arms waving around as though the body didn’t realise it was minus its head - and, disgusted, Dan pushed it away and continued to watch - in horror - as it collapsed to the deck; the blood still pumping from where the head once sat. Over and over again, Dan kept repeating, ‘What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?’ Everything had happened so fast; Dan didn’t even know what had happened to the head. He quickly moved to the edge of the boat and peered over the edge, half expecting to see a severed head bobbing up and down in the waters. There was no head, nor was there any sign of the dolphin - the latter being enough to make Dan back away from the boat’s side, just as quickly as he’d gone over to it. A very real worry that the creature could, once again, leap from the waters and in a repeat performance which would result in the loss of his head too. Unsure what to do, and still in shock, Dan slumped down with his back to the boat’s side. His eyes drifted back over to Juan’s body; the left arm was still spasming. The water was still yet, Dan’s world started to spin.

16

WAKEY-WAKEY

Dan opened his eyes. He didn’t even remember blacking out and yet he must have. He didn’t recall making it back to shore and yet… He was off the fishing boat. He was in a hospital bed. No machinery hanging off him so, that was a good sign at least. Clearly he hadn’t had a heart attack, or something.

‘Want to explain what the fuck happened out there?’ The sheriff’s voice startled Dan who, at the sound of it, spun to see the sheriff standing over by the hospital room’s window. He had his back to Dan and was staring out to the world beyond, and the setting sun. ‘You were found. Some of your colleague was found… Where’s his head? We got to worry about that washing up on some beach soon too?’

Dan didn’t know what to say. Although it was only two questions, the sheriff’s words felt like machine-gun fire straight through Dan’s skull and into his aching brain.

‘I’m guessing you found it? This fucking creature-thing that’s causing all this shit for us so, come on, what was it? We dealing with a shark?’

‘I… I don’t know…’

‘Did you see it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did it attack you and somehow take your colleague’s head?’

‘…’

‘Going to need an answer. You were found on a fishing boat with a headless body. What happened?’

‘It all happened so fast. It just came out of the water and leapt over the boat and the next thing… His head was gone… His head was just gone.’

’So you saw it?’

‘Not the decapitation… I saw it in the air though… the creature…’

‘Creature… So - not a shark?’

‘…’

‘Jesus fucking Christ, will you tell me already what we’re dealing with?’

‘We’re dealing with an impossibility! This thing looked like a dolphin for the most part but - that was not a fucking dolphin! Its shape is different from anything we’ve seen in a dolphin before but…’ Even when Dan paused to try and find the suitable words, he couldn’t. What he saw did have traits of a dolphin, and definite traits of a shark in facial structure but - a dolphin would not be able to breed with a shark! It was impossible. Fish and mammal. Mammal and fish. Intercourse is unlikely but possible, that much was true but - to actually breed together? If he tried telling any of his colleagues about this, back in the States or anywhere else for that matter, he would be laughed off the call. No one in this profession would ever take him seriously. Whilst he couldn’t explain how it happened, all he knew was that it had. For people to believe him, ‘We have to find it and capture it.’ Dan threw the blankets off his body and swung his feet down to the cold floor.

‘Capture it?’ The sheriff shook his head. ‘No. We have to find it kill it.’ That was the problem with situations like this; people would hear about an animal attacking a human and they’d go all gung-ho and go hunting for it. When they found the animals, they didn’t hesitate to kill them. It had happened before, when a shark was terrorising a beach… Locals set out to find it and kill it. And it happened with stingrays too, after one killed Steve Irwin. People headed to the ocean and killed as many of them as they could find. Dan understood why people did this but, it didn’t help when it came to further research. If this thing truly was a cross between a dolphin and a shark then it was an entirely new species and, if that was the case, it had many secrets to share. Secrets which could unlock further understanding in other fields too. They needed to capture this creature because it was clearly too dangerous to leave in the ocean now that it had a taste for human blood. But, to kill it? That was too far. From the look on the sheriff’s face though, Dan knew there was little point in saying this to him and, for all Dan knew, the law enforcement officer probably already had boats out there, on patrol and hunting this creature. He wasn’t wrong. ‘We treat it the same as a rogue shark.’  And there it was, the exact line Dan had been waiting for.

The term “rogue shark” was brought in for when a shark attacks a human. There was a common misconception that once a shark had tasted human blood, it would continue to feed on people because of a newly acquired taste but, this was bullshit. ‘We can’t treat it the same as a rogue shark because there’s no such thing as a rogue shark.’ Dan wasn’t able to hold his tongue. He knew explaining this to the sheriff would be the equivalent of pissing into the wind but there was a small part of him which remained hopeful in his ability to educate the sheriff on something at least. ‘Sharks don’t like humans. Bites happen by accident. They see a shape; they take a test bite. A bite which is usually spat out or vomited back up again. They don’t suddenly change their entire diet after one such bite but…’

‘Yesterday you were trying to tell me dolphins and sharks couldn’t breed and yet, here we are… I think it is fair to say, at this stage, we don’t take your expertise at face value. In fact, I believe Taco Bell is hiring…’

‘You’ve already got people out there looking for it, haven’t you?’

‘We’re going to find it. We’re going to shoot it. You should be happy.’

‘Happy?’

‘It killed a whole tribe of dolphins…’

‘Tribe?’

‘Collective. Group. Swarm. Fuck do I care?’

‘Pod.’

‘It killed a pod of dolphins. We’re going to take care of it, so it doesn’t go and kill more dolphins. You should be happy about that.’

‘If this is a true hybrid, it’s a miracle of science. We can’t just kill it. We need to study it. We need to understand how.’

‘The time for questions stopped when the bodies started to mount. I need to protect the beaches. Can’t have this thing swimming up and down… People thinking it’s a cute dolphin and trying to get in the water with it… Next thing, chomp chomp. We’re going to find it and we’re going to take care of it.’

‘If you’re not going to listen to me, why are you even here?’

The sheriff smiled. ‘To let you know it’s over. We know what it is. We have people out there looking for it and - you’re no longer needed. You can go back to the office and do whatever it is you normally do.’ He didn’t wait for Dan to say anything. Instead, he walked from the room - leaving the door wide open behind him with a hope that Dan would get out of the hospital gown, put his clothes on and fuck off back to wherever he came from - and sooner rather than later. But, throughout the whole conversation, at not one point was Dan considering leaving this investigation until he’d seen it through to the end, whatever that may be. Despite his rough day, he wanted nothing more than to get back out there on the water. More so now he knew this hybrid was definitely out there. A glance back out of the window and, the sun had completely set. His search would have to continue in the morning. All being well, others would have called the search off for the day too. His heart sunk as he could only imagine how many people had been out there searching already. The only good news, if any real good news could be found in such a day, was that they’d not already found and killed the animal. How did Dan know? Because the Sheriff would have taken great delight in telling him, had it already been slaughtered. Another piece of positivity to take? Whilst the Sheriff could round up a few people to go fishing, his reach was still limited.

THE WORLD KNOWS NOW

17

MORNING NEWS

Morning had come and with it, more disastrous news for Dan. The creature had attacked another group overnight but, this time, it had made the News - and not just on local television but, around the world.

As the sun was setting, a group of youths had headed to the beach for some skinny-dipping. One of the girls had got into the water and swam some way out, whilst the others were still stripping off and laughing amongst themselves. When the attack happened, the girl’s boyfriend didn’t hesitate to run into the water to try and help. At this point, he had no idea what was happening and just that his partner was in trouble. The others grabbed their camera phones and - it was that footage which was being beamed around the world. That footage which - thanks to specialists tinkering with it - showed this new breed of mammal.

In the video, the boyfriend punched the dolphin hard on the nose. It was enough of a blow to startle the creature long enough for the boyfriend to then drag his partner away from it. The unnamed local even went for a second punch but, the dolphin swam away before he could connect. The whole clip was barely two minutes long, but it was enough to show the savagery of the dolphin. It was enough to see the naked woman fall from the ocean, dropping to her knees in the still-warm sand, calling over and over, ‘It’s penis was inside me…’ There, the clip froze.

Some shows stopped the clip there and incorrectly labelled it as a grotesque shark attack which, in itself, wasn’t great. People would hear the word “shark” and immediately panic. Then they’d demand that the fish was hunted so as to ensure the beaches were safe. Whilst it was a fair assumption to make that the governments wouldn’t permit such hunting; it didn’t mean people wouldn’t take the law into their own hands and hunt regardless. That was one issue. The other issue came from the other stations. Fox News, for example, had not only zoomed in on the attack but - they’d also gone one step further and called in a specialist. And this specialist?

‘This is not a shark. This is not a dolphin. Or rather, it’s not one we’ve encountered before…’

There it was. The hint of a new species waiting to be discovered. A hint which would excite marine biologists around the world and have them flocking to the location in the hope of discovering what it was.

When Dan woke up, he knew he was in a race against whatever fishermen the Sheriff had managed to get together but now? He was in a race against biologists, scientists, television crews, tourists; anyone who wanted to catch a glimpse of this creature - whether they were there for the fame, reward or curiosity. Suddenly, the sea was about to be a whole lot more crowded.

Keen to get out there, Dan skipped breakfast and hit the road at what he considered an “early” time. Today, he knew he needed to hire himself more than just a boat. This time, he was going to need an entire crew to go with him. Extra hands to help net the dolphin, if they were lucky enough to be the first ones to find it again. As Dan navigated the twisting roads down to the harbour, he tried to shake the nagging voice in his head as it pointed out - Juan might still have been alive if he’d hired a crew the first time they’d gone out. What happened to Juan wasn’t my fault. Despite telling himself that, the doubt continued circling in his mind, like a shark waiting to attack its prey. Unable to silence it, Dan leaned to the radio and cranked the volume up to its highest point. The “blame” was still there in his head but, at least now it was slightly muted. Keen to get to the harbour, Dan put his foot down harder on the gas pedal.

18

THE WORLD AND ITS WIFE

Options on boats to hire were somewhat limited down at the harbour. Dan’s worst fears had been confirmed the moment he pulled into the parking lot, in that everyone had apparently wanted to get out on the water this morning, and he knew it was going to be a bitch to get himself a crewed boat. Worse, with the weather being the same as it was every other day, it was obvious why the water was busier today than the days before; people wanted to see this animal. Given how poor the country was, Dan hazarded a guess these people weren’t here for sight-seeing alone either. Most, if not all, would have been chasing the reward.

Diego, the greasy-looking captain of the last remaining boat, could smell Dan’s desperation on him. ‘Sorry, we’re not going out today, my friend.’ The first lie. Diego didn’t mind taking his boat out. In fact, his crew were waiting to go out there. But making Dan think they weren’t leaving the harbour today was step one of driving up the price. ‘Busy waters. Never good going out there when it’s like this. People don’t pay attention. More chance of an accident…’

‘I get that but, come on, I really need to get out there. Whatever your daily rate is, I’ll double it.’

Inside Diego jumped for joy but, on the outside, he played it cool. He looked out to the horizon and squinted. ‘I don’t know… Bad feeling. Did you see the news?’ Diego knew the answer to that. Having seen Dan at the harbour the day before, he’d already correctly assumed Dan not only knew about the creature out there, but had known before the latest news had broken too. ‘No. Sorry. I don’t think so. Not today.’

‘Three times. Final offer.’

Diego laughed. ‘Must be really desperate to get out there, huh?’

‘That thing in the news? They want it dead but… We cannot allow them to kill it. This is a new species entirely and there’s so much we can learn from it and…’ Dan stopped himself. From Diego’s blank expression, he either didn’t care or wasn’t understanding all of Dan’s words. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter if Diego understood. All that mattered was, he - and his crew - took Dan out on the waters. ‘Four times your day rate if you help me capture the creature and bring it back safely.’

Diego extended his hand. ‘Deal.’

The two men shook, and Diego turned to his watching crew. In words Dan didn’t understand, he barked some instructions out and - the men set to work, readying the boat to leave the harbour. Diego turned back to Dan and, in a tone which could have easily been mistaken for a warning, said, ‘You best be good for the money, my friend.’

Dan nodded. ‘I am.’ If Dan could catch the dolphin-hybrid and bring it back - he knew most of his money troubles would pretty much be over at that point. And if they failed to find and secure the mammal? He’d worry about the fee later. For now, with the captain’s permission, he boarded the boat. ‘We can leave immediately, yes?’

‘Ten minutes at most.’

‘Five.’

Diego laughed. ‘Ten minutes.’ This wasn’t up for discussion. He was the captain of the boat, even if Dan was footing the bill. Diego climbed onboard and joined his crew in readying the vessel to leave the harbour.

Dan looked across the water and out to the other boats out there. Not for the first time, he felt a heavy sinking sensation in his heart. A worry that they’d not find the hybrid in time and that - one of these other boats would. He just hoped they weren’t all there for blood and that - some of them might have been there for scientific purposes too. If there were other scientists then, whilst it wouldn’t be him making claim to the creature, at least they wouldn’t be in a hurry to kill it. With that sickly feeling in his gut, Dan turned back to the captain and watched him working with the crew. It took his all to resist asking them if they could speed things up a little. The faster they were out there, the better their chance of finding the hybrid. It didn’t matter which direction Dan faced; he was surrounded by “stress”. With his mind racing, and heart chasing just as fast, Dan closed his eyes and tried to close his mind down to the various stresses he was facing. He concentrated on the sound of the ocean’s waves; a noise he’d loved ever since first coming to the beach, years ago, as a child. Just as his heart started to calm, Diego called out from behind.

‘Ready?!’

‘I am.’

‘You sure about that because, I don’t think you are.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Aren’t you forgetting the payment you promised?’

‘We haven’t caught it yet.’

‘But you want my boat and my crew, no? Three times the daily rate is what you said…’

‘I said four times the rate, if you help me capture the dolphin everyone is out there hunting.’

‘Exactly, my friend, so… Three times up front. Then the rest of the fee when we get back. That way I know you’re good for it.’ Diego folded his arms. ‘Or you can get off my boat now?’

Dan sighed. ‘Credit cards good?’

‘Cash is better, but we can make it work.’ Diego winked at him. ‘I’ll get the card machine.’

19

THE MAN WITH NO PLAN

With all the fishing gear on the back of the boat, it was a reasonable assumption to make that the crew would know how to capture the dolphin and bring it up on deck without harming it but, even so, Dan couldn’t help but feel the stress continue to mount. The biggest concern, after someone else finding the animal first that is, was that they might accidentally hurt it when trying to rescue it, or that something would happen to it on the way back to shore. All of the worst-case scenarios kept going round in his head, along with flashbacks of Juan standing there without his head attached to his shoulders. What if that happened again? The dolphin had cleared the boat in the blink of an eye and - in that blink - he’d managed to somehow sever a grown man’s head. Clearly, if they found it, they were up for a fight, and it was one which Dan could not enter with guarantees they’d all come out the other side. Those concerns he kept to himself as he called over to the captain. ‘We should probably have a talk.’

‘We should?’

‘Yes.’

‘About what, my friend?’

‘About how we’re going to capture the dolphin if we find it.’

Diego laughed. ‘If we find it? No, no, no, my friend. It’s when we find it.’

Dan didn’t correct him. He pushed on. ‘So do you know how we’re going to bring it on board?’

Diego shrugged. ‘Where there’s a will…’

‘Like I said, we should probably all have a chat about the role each of us will play.’

‘Well, my friend, your role is simple. You’re going to help us find it and then - you’re going to step to the side and let my men do their job. Pretty easy plan, no?’

‘Even so, would be nice to know how…’

‘Relax, my friend. We will take care of everything! You’re paying us to, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ A sudden pang of panic again at the thought of his now maxed-out credit cards.

‘Then let us do our job.’ Diego smiled. ‘Good customer service, my friend. We strive to give good customer service.’ He finished by laughing. It wasn’t a laugh which filled Dan with any peace of mind. In fact, it had the opposite effect.

Dan turned out to sea. So many other boats out there. Some heading further out still. Some with their anchor dropped and the crews chumming the waters in the hope of attracting the dolphin… All of them looking busy. All of them as equally determined as the other to find the animal first. Along with the heavy feeling of stress pressing down upon him, there was also a level of regret too. Dan knew he’d been ill-prepared the day before, when it was only Juan and him out on the water. Had they hired a full crew then, there was a chance they could have already captured the hybrid. Furthermore, there was a chance Juan would still be alive. Dan closed his eyes and tried to shut his mind off from such thoughts. Again, he focused on the sound of the sea and the boat’s diesel engine in an effort to distract himself but, his efforts were short-lived as the sound of gun-fire echoed through the morning air.

BLOODBATH

20

WHEN THE TIDES TURN

Another gunshot rang out. Diego grabbed his binoculars and looked out into the distance where the crew of a small trawler were leaning overboard. Some of the men had pointed hooks in hand whilst another of the men had a gun. He pointed down into the water and pulled the trigger again. A third gun shot rang through the air as the bullet bit into whatever was thrashing at the water’s surface.

‘Did they get it?’ Dan was almost too afraid to ask.

Diego said nothing as he continued to watch. He was concentrating on the thrashing water, trying to see what the men were attacking. Moments later and they started to pull a juvenile Tiger shark up from the ocean. It took all of their strength to get it on deck. A fourth shot as the trigger-happy boatsman put another bullet into the shark. This time, directly into its head. The shark stopped thrashing.

‘Well? Did they get it?’

‘Tiger.’ Diego lowered his binoculars and turned away from the carnage. Dan stayed standing there, watching the trawler despite not being able to clearly see what was happening. He sighed a heavy sigh. It hadn’t taken long for the inhumane killings to start, and he had known that was always going to be the case. What made it even more tragic was, the Sheriff had practically invited this kind of behaviour by putting a reward up on the hybrid in the first place. Dan already knew the men illegally killing the sharks wouldn’t have charges put against them. It was a sorry sight and, with that in mind, Dan put his back to it. Another gunshot but, this time, it was up into the air. A celebratory shot for a “good kill”.

Diego casually shrugged. ‘The sea runs red today.’

‘Well let’s hope we find what we’re looking for before it’s blood is added to the mix.’

‘Question, Mr. Big Shot, how are we going to find it with so many people out here looking for it too?’

Dan didn’t know how to respond because, Dan didn’t know. With so many people out here, most sea-life would have no doubt given them a swerve, even with the amount of chum being thrown into the waters. Only the hungry would come to the party and one thing the dolphin had demonstrated for sure, so far, was that - it wasn’t in it for the food. From the encounters so far, the kills seemed to be more of a sport. Whilst this meant Dan didn’t exactly know how to bring it to them, it did give him a little relief in the hope it wouldn’t show up whilst so many people were here. All it had to do was keep its distance for a few days and, most people would get bored and leave. The only problem with that was, Dan wouldn’t be able to keep paying this crew so much money. Not when his cards were already maxed out and he still had the worry of paying the remaining balance if they did manage to find their needle in the haystack.

Diego pressed him. ‘You have a plan, don’t you?’

When Dan didn’t answer for a second time, one of Diego’s crewmates whispered something in Diego’s ear. Dan didn’t know what was said but, with the tone used, he could only presume it wasn’t anything polite. Whatever it was, Diego seemed to calm him with a hand gesture. ‘Seems neither of us really have a plan then,’ Dan said.

There were more gunshots from across the bay which distracted everyone on the boat. A different gun this time but, just as loud. Both Dan and Diego followed the sound and - a different boat this time too albeit with the same plan as the first boat to land a kill. Men were leaning over the edge, hooking another illegal kill. Diego looked through the binoculars. ‘Another Tiger.’ Dan breathed a sigh of relief as Diego lowered the binoculars. ‘And… We have a plan. We just haven’t told you.’ He laughed.

‘Well, care to share?’ Dan noticed all of the crew had the same shit-eating grin on their faces, as though they were all in on a secret joke.

‘Not noticed all the hooks we have onboard?’ Diego glanced around the boat. True enough, there were hooks on all sides, mounted on small hooks of their own. Dan had noticed them of course, just as he’d seen them on the boat he’d hired the previous day. ‘No harm in saying seeing as you’re going to be no use to us but… You help us find the dolphin. We hook it. We get the reward…’

‘What are you talking about? We had a deal.’

‘Yeah. A shit one. But three times the day rate and the reward for bringing in the fish? Well…’ Diego looked back to his crew. They were all standing there, still grinning. ‘That’s a good fucking pay day right there.’

‘You weren’t going to help me bring it back?’

Diego laughed again. ‘Not alive. Look around, my friend. Where were we going to put it until we got back? A giant fish bowl?’

‘I want my money back.’

‘Nah. No refunds, my friend.’

‘You fucking lied to me.’

Diego shrugged. ‘Cruel world… But we aren’t going back. Not until we find this fish, with or without your help.’

‘You think I’m going to help you after all that? No. I don’t think so.’

More gunshots, from the other side of the boat this time. Diego positioned himself to get a better look through his binoculars. ‘Looks like a White to me. Busy ocean today. Got to wonder where your little fishy is.’ Dan lunged for Diego and sucker punched him in the face with a hard left hook which felled the captain to the deck. Dan’s victory was short-lived when he was immediately set upon by the other crewmates who knocked him down with just as much ease. Before Dan got a chance to get back up to his feet, the crewmates surrounded him and started to rain blow after blow down upon him. They only stopped once Diego was standing again. They took a step back from Dan, as he writhed around both bloody and in significant pain. Diego watched him writhe about as he himself wiped his bloody nose “clean” with the back of his own hand. ‘I have a feeling you might be regretting that little stunt now, my friend?’ It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t give Dan a chance to answer as, in a move both sudden and vicious, he kicked Dan directly in the face. Dan was out cold before Diego’s foot touched the deck again.

21

FLOATING IN THE DARKNESS

Dan had been treading water for…

No idea.

All day?

All around him, everything was black. Black water, black sky with blacker clouds blotting out the midnight moon. He had no recollection of getting here. A crazy presumption that they’d tossed him overboard when he was unconscious but then, if that happened, the curious question of how he hadn’t drowned. If there had been any ships around, he’d have seen their lights punching through the blackness and yet, there were none. He knew he was alone but it didn’t stop him from trying to call out, on the off-chance someone would hear and come to his rescue. The operative word being “trying”. Every time he opened his mouth and called, no voice carried through. The same result no matter how he tried to push his voice through whatever was causing the block. Then, the realisation hit. He had no recollection of splashing down into the water, and he hadn’t drowned whilst floating around, still unconscious from the beating taken, because - none of it happened, with the exception of the beating. That happened. But, they hadn’t thrown him overboard. He wasn’t in the water and - to prove it - Dan stopped treading the water. With no seabed underfoot, at this point he should have sunk beneath the surface but he didn’t. He stayed on the same spot as though secured in place by invisible beams. He wasn’t drowning in the sea. He was in his own subconscious, not that the realisation brought about any peace of mind as it raised the question, where was he out in the real world? Was he about to be tossed overboard? Was this where he was to spend the rest of his time, with his body never regaining consciousness? Perhaps cabled into many machines, all working hard to keep his organs pumping and oxygen circulating? A beating so severe that this was his life now; trapped in a coma.

All around him, everything was black. Black water, black sky with blacker clouds blotting out the midnight moon. The sound of the waves and - he strained to hear anything else but, there was nothing. No doctors and nurses talking out there, in the blackness, as they worked around the hospital bed he could have been lying on. No laughing crewmates congratulating Diego on a hefty, well-placed kick. Nothing but the sound of the waves.

With nothing to see and nothing really to hear, it should have been peaceful but, there was no peace to be found out here, trapped in the dark. Dan called out in an effort to wake himself yet just as before, no voice carried through, and he felt his frustration grow. With a feeling of dread washing over him, he turned his head in both directions. A hope that - somewhere out there - he’d see signs of life, land, or somewhere to go at least. There was nothing. Even if there was something, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Despite appearing to be in the water, his weightless body wasn’t actually in water, so there was nothing to swim against and no other way of moving. He simply “existed” in this space.

With nothing else to do, Dan closed his eyes and “wished” himself awake. When he opened his eyes again, it hadn’t worked. He was still stuck out there, lost in the darkness of his mind but not alone this time.

BUMP

Dan’s heart skipped a beat as he felt something slam against him beneath the water. He looked down his body but saw nothing beneath the black surface. Not his body, not what had bumped him. Desperate to get away from whatever could have been under him, he tried to swim but, again, his hands moved through the water as though it were nothing but air. When he kicked with his feet, it was the same and he remained floating in the same spot until…

BUMP

Another skipped heartbeat and another frantic waving of his hands and kicking of his feet, both to no avail once more. He kicked again, not because he was trying to move but in a desperate attempt to kick away whatever was bumping him. His feet hit nothing. Whatever it was had either moved away, or was as untouchable as the black water.

BUMP

Dan waited in the darkness for the next bump. This time, he was ready to lash out as quick as he could. Whatever it was, it was about to get a sharp kick to the head; hard enough to drive it away, all being good. He waited.

He waited.

He waited.

Still waiting.

Any minute now.

Where are you?

Another burning question: What are you? With no further warning, Dan screamed into the darkness as a mouth clamped down on his waist. Teeth in his back. Teeth in his gut. His legs stuck in whatever had him. Before he had a chance to try and kick out, Dan disappeared beneath the dark, dark blackness and…

22

THE WHITE SANDS OF NOWHERE

Dan tried to open both eyes but only one opened. The other one was swollen shut from one of the punches. He winced in pain, not just from his bad eye but the aches and bruises all over his hurting body. He sat up on a beach of pure white sand. Paradise, had it not been for how battered he was. A quick glance from side to side and, this wasn’t a beach he’d been on before. A look out to the sea and - no boat, neither close nor on the horizon. Gentle waters lapping at the shoreline. Paradise, had it not been for the slight red tinge to the once clear waters.

With effort Dan pulled himself up to his feet. He brushed the sand off his bloodied clothes as he came to the realisation he was no longer on land he knew. ‘Fuckers.’ He’d been dumped on an island he didn’t recognise. Standing on the spot, with nothing but a quick glance over his shoulders, he could tell it wasn’t one of the big ones either. Another part of the crew’s punishment? To dump him on an island for a few hours… Long enough to make him panic, but not so long that he’d starve to death, or die of thirst - the latter more likely, especially given the heat. He could already feel the dizzying effects of the sun from where it had been beating down on his unconscious body.

Ignoring the aches, he moved over to the shelter of a nearby coconut tree and slumped back against it. He slid down its trunk until his arse imprinted into the sand beneath. Dan leaned his head back and closed his eyes. There was a temptation to just sleep forever but he knew it wouldn’t solve any of what was going on in his life: It wouldn’t find the dolphin everyone was hunting for; it wouldn’t get him off the island and back to the main shore and… He opened his eyes and looked out to the water. Was the dolphin even still out there, or was it already dead? A lot could have happened in the time he’d been “sleeping” for and…

Another thought…

He patted down his trouser pockets in the hope of finding his phone there. It was missing, as too was his wallet. He muttered again, ‘Fuckers.’ He had had both phone and wallet when he set out that day. It didn’t take a genius to work out where they were now. It’s okay. They’re just teaching me a lesson. They’ll be back for me. They won’t just leave me out here to die. If they really wanted to be bastards - and why wouldn’t they after he’d antagonised them by lashing out first - they’d only come and get him after the dolphin was dead. An extra “fuck you” from them to him, given how powerless he was to do anything to save it whilst stuck here. Yeah, that’s it. They’ll come and get me when it’s dead. Dan felt his heart sink. A once in a lifetime opportunity to study a new species and, like that, it was gone. Once again, mankind being all too quick to come along and destroy what they didn’t understand. Dan closed his eyes again and tried to wish himself away from not just this place but the life he’d chosen for himself. Given this missed opportunity, everything up to this point now felt nothing more than a waste of both time and his life. This was his chance to really make something of himself and, it was gone. He had no idea that, even if the dolphin was dead, in nine months’ time its story would continue.

*

A GLIMPSE, AND ONLY A GLIMPSE, TO THE FUTURE UNSEEN

She thought the baby was her boyfriend’s; a happy ever after to the trauma experienced out in the water of that late night skinny dip all those months ago. At first glance of the baby, she knew it wasn’t her boyfriend’s child.

The midwife screamed as the newborn smiled at her. A row of sharp teeth, the same teeth found in the mouth of a dolphin, protruding from the pink gums. Unlike other newborns, the neonate wasn’t crying or screaming. Instead it was making a series of high pitched clicking noises akin to the sounds Flipper would make whilst frantically trying to get the attention of a nearby person.

The midwife fainted, not that anyone rushed to help.

All eyes were on the baby whilst the frantic mother screamed for it to be taken away from her.

*

THE WHITE SANDS OF NOWHERE (CONTINUED)

Something else which bothered Dan was that, had he done his job well and found the creature before it took Juan’s life… Had they gone out that day and brought it back to shore, or at least put a tracker on it, then all of these boats wouldn’t be patrolling the waters now, killing all they found.

Still the reddish waters lapped at the shoreline.

All the fish that died today were as a result of Dan’s failure and, that was something else he would now have to live with. His mind drifted back to the excitement he had felt when he moved from America to Mexico. He’d never thought he’d feel such feelings about getting back to Stateside and yet, here he was wishing for exactly that and with that very same feeling of excitement to what could be the start of a new chapter in his life.

Still

The

Reddish

Waters

Lapped

At

The

Shoreline

Your fault. Juan’s death. All the life that died today. It’s all your fault and, if they’ve killed the creature they’re looking for, that’s your fault too. You’ve failed.

As the sun slowly began to set on another day, Dan slowly came to the unpleasant realisation that the boat wasn’t coming back for him. Really, he’d known that all along. His brain had just refused to believe it. No one could be that evil. Out here, laws were different, and disputes settled in more hostile ways than back home. Proof in the pudding was found in an old news report detailing how a local gang went about beheading those who upset them. Really, Dan should have been grateful he still had his head attached. Grateful. He laughed. He never thought he’d find himself being “grateful” about being left to starve to death on a small island. He looked out to sea once more. Where the hell am I? It was a pointless question to ask all the time he was going to lean there and not do anything to help himself find an answer. He looked back over his shoulder. It wasn’t the biggest of islands but, there might have been something here to help him escape it; a washed-up raft, something to make a float, the bits needed to spark up a fire to attract attention… At the very least, there might be some fresh water to be found and something to eat? Water being of the main concern right now, given he couldn’t exactly live off nothing, or the salt-water licking at the shoreline. In his head, panic flashed through as the next loudest question from his brain was poised, Am I really going to die on a desert island? Of all the directions his life could have taken, of all the ways he could have met his maker… This had never crossed his mind. He looked up and squinted towards the sun. It’s the sun’s fault you’re thinking crazy thoughts. Keep to the shade. Don’t get sunstroke…

‘Are your friends coming back?’ Dan jumped at the sound of the little girl’s voice. He spun around and was shocked to see a young girl standing close to where the sandy beach disappeared into the thicket of trees. ‘When are they coming back?’

DOLARK

23

EVIE

Dan recognised the girl. Her face had been on the News, along with details of the dolphin attack which had claimed the life of her father. He couldn’t recall her name though. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Evie.’

Evie had been missing for almost forty-eight hours now with most presuming she’d been lost at sea and yet here she was, burned by the harsh sun and severely dehydrated given her look; sunken eyes and dry, cracked lips. ‘Evie… People have been looking for you.’

‘Are your friends coming back? Maybe I could go back with you, and you could call my mummy for me?’

Dan didn’t have the heart to tell her they weren’t coming back but, he also knew she would now be looking to him for answers as to how to escape this island. Answers he wouldn’t be able to provide.

‘My mummy must be really worried.’

Dan nodded. ‘She is but look, here you are! Safe and sound.’

Evie frowned. She was young but she wasn’t stupid. She was alive, yes, but this couldn’t be even remotely described as being “safe and sound”. ‘When are your friends coming back to get you? Do you think they’d let me go with you too?’

Still not wanting to break the news they were stranded, Dan asked, ‘How did you get here?’ Dan didn’t know what island they were on but what he did know was, there were no islands close to where her boat had sunk. There was no way she could have swam and, the boat - whilst trashed - had mostly been intact so, there wouldn’t have been anything she could have floated here on. ‘How did you get here?’

Evie hesitated. ‘It brought me here.’ With that, she turned back towards the line of trees and - no more words - started to walk towards them.

‘Wait.’ Dan followed, unsure as to where she was going. With his quickened pace and a wider stride, he soon caught up with her. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I thought you would want to see.’

‘See?’

‘It’s still here.’

Dan’s heart skipped a beat. Still here? ‘The thing that attacked the boat you were on?’

‘Daddy said it was a dolphin but, I don’t think it is.’ Evie pushed through another thicket and stepped into a clearing.

In the centre of the clearing there was a rock formation with a body of water pooled in the centre. The rock-pool was linked directly to the ocean itself with a cut-away too narrow to be a river but too wide to be a stream. Despite the natural beauty of the area, Dan noticed nothing other than the creature which was circling within the pool. There it was, in all its glory. Not quite a dolphin, yet not quite a shark. Dan had no words.

‘I thought it was going to eat me but it went under me and lifted me onto its back…’

‘It swum all the way here and down the little cut-away to this pool?’

Evie nodded. ‘I think it might be stuck now.’

Dan walked closer to the edge of the rock pool. There was room enough for the creature to move around freely so, he didn’t think it was stuck. More like, it didn’t want to leave the girl. What Dan couldn’t understand was why. He knelt down on one knee and watched the creature. It stopped swimming and turned to face Dan.  With its eyes locked to his own, it floated there - seemingly watching him with as much curiosity as Dan had for it. ‘Probably safer you’re in here. Got a whole port out there fishing for you.’

The dolphin’s face was flat, like a shark. The mouth, whilst not fully “dolphin”, still smiled in much the same way a dolphin’s would. It wasn’t a friendly look, not helped by the blackness in the hybrid’s eyes.

‘Jesus. You really are a dolark… But how do you even exist?’

‘What’s a dolark?’

‘This is a dolark. A cross between a shark and a dolphin but… It’s impossible.’

‘What is impossible?’

‘Its existence.’

‘Why?’

Dan didn’t have the patience to explain to a child. ‘It just is.’

Evie had already lost interest. There was only one thing she wanted to know. ‘Are your friends coming back soon? I want to go home.’ Dan didn’t hear her. He was too busy watching the hybrid, trying to get his head around how such a thing could exist. Even had he heard what Evie said, he wouldn’t have had an answer other than, I don’t know.

‘Why did you bring the girl here?’ Dan knew the hybrid wasn’t going to answer him. The question was rhetorical, even though he genuinely wanted the answer. Why would this creature kill others but bring this girl out here? And if it wanted to save her, why not take her to where there were other people? ‘What is going on in that mind?’ He paused a moment before slowly turning back to Evie. ‘You want to go home?’

‘Yes.’

For whatever reason the hybrid had spared this young girl. Why it had, Dan would probably never know. It didn’t matter. What mattered was, it had saved her. If they wanted to get off the island, then - what if this hybrid was the way? What if it carried her back to the mainland, whatever direction that may be? What if she told the first people she came across about this place? What if they send boats to fetch Dan back? ‘Do you trust me?’

Evie frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

With no more words, Dan shoved Evie into the rock pool. In his head, the hybrid would scoop her onto its back once again but…

Evie screamed as she fell into the water but, her scream was cut short as the creature grabbed her and - in an instant - ragged her from side to side like a dog with an old blanket. Her body cracked open, and her blood filled the rock pool. Dan fell back in shock as the hybrid continued savaging her. As her body continued to rip open, her innards leaked out and mixed with the water until it had a consistency - and colour - not too dissimilar to tomato soup. Still, the hybrid continued shaking what remained of her body from side to side.

‘THEN WHY DID YOU SAVE HER? WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SAVE HER?!’ The hybrid released its mouthful and stopped its violent thrashing. It went back to just floating there. Its beady eyes fixed directly on Dan as he continued yelling at it. ‘WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SAVE HER?! WHAT? WAS IT A FUCKING MISTAKE?! DID YOU NOT REALISE SHE WAS ON YOUR BACK UNTIL YOU GOT HERE?! IS THAT WHEN YOU REALISED YOUR MISTAKE AND ONLY HUNG AROUND UNTIL YOU COULD KILL HER TOO?!’ Dan hadn’t thought through what he was shouting. The words were spewing out like word vomit but, once they’d splashed down, they made sense in a fucked-up kind of way. Had it not meant to rescue her? Had it purposefully hung around on the off chance it could kill her? Was the hybrid really that spiteful and - with no better word to describe it - evil?

Dan didn’t know if he was going to get off the island. The only thing he knew now was, whatever happened to him, the hybrid couldn’t survive.

‘Fuck this fish.’

24

FOR THOSE IN THE BACK

‘FUCK THIS FISH!’

Dan didn’t know if this could be classed as a fish or whether it was still a mammal. Now, he didn’t give a shit. Whatever it was, it couldn’t live. What’s more, it wouldn’t live.

Dan looked around for something he could use to kill the hybrid. A fallen branch from a tree? Better yet if it were already sharpened to a point. Large rocks which he could throw into the water in the hope of cracking the hybrid’s skull… Probably the easier option with the many rocks around the pool; and one such boulder-sized stone directly by his feet. He leaned down and, with effort, picked it up. A move which almost crippled his back in the process, not that he gave a shit.

With as much effort used to lift the rock, he tossed it into the water with an aim which could only be described as off-center. The rock splashed down to the dark depths a few feet from where the hybrid was floating. Quick as a flash, it changed position to the other side of the pool as Dan hurried for a second rock. He had to be quick as he didn’t know if the creature was stuck in the pool, confused as to where the exit was, or whether it had only been waiting there until it could get to the young girl. As of right now, the worst thing that could happen would be for it to swim back up the narrow passage which had led it here in the first place. Once out in the open water again, Dan would have had no way to get to it.

A second rock was tossed into the water. This time, the hybrid-creature darted to the opposite side of the pool before the rock had even splashed down into the murky waters.

‘STOP FUCKING MOVING!’

Dan spotted another suitably large boulder a few feet away from where he was standing. This time, closer to the water’s edge. He lunged for it and grabbed it with both hands. Sweat poured from his scalp as he put all of his energy into first lifting it and then, throwing it. The hybrid dodged the projectile by darting back to the opposite side again. It was a game it seemed it would never grow tired of playing, unlike Dan. He paused a moment to catch his breath but, he that didn’t mean he stopped everything. His eyes scanned the area for another suitable chunk of stone. When he saw one, he made his move but - this time - so too did the dolphin.

In a show of power, the creature left the water with a high-pitched cry. Dan stood, dumb struck, as he watched the beast fully flip in mid-air, before bringing its hefty tail smack down on Dan’s head. Dan fell to the ground and, unable to raise his hands in time to defend himself, hit his head on the very rock he was going for. The dolphin hit the ground too and immediately started flopping around as it desperately tried to manoeuvre itself back towards the safety of the water until… It suddenly stopped struggling. Once still, it turned its odd-shaped face towards Dan.

‘You okay there, Danny?’

Dan - dazed - looked at, unsure what he was seeing. ‘What did you say?’

‘You okay, Danny?’

Dan blinked. The pool was gone. The dolphin was gone. The island. The blue sky. The blazing heat of the sun. It was all gone, replaced with grey, murky skies, a chill breeze and…

22 YEARS AGO

25

DAD

In the opening of his eyes, the last perceived twenty-two years had all but vanished leaving nothing but a foggy, nightmarish memory. Danny was on the ground. His stepbrother, Luke, was standing over him with a concerned look on his face which, somehow, bordered on being highly amused at the situation. Danny’s dad, Mark, was there too and, with him, a woman who Danny didn’t recognise.

‘You okay?’

Danny’s dad helped pick his son up off the ground where he’d tripped whilst  running towards the aquarium’s main entrance. Danny was hurt but, he wasn’t crying due to being in shock.

‘You good?’

Not entirely sure, Danny nodded.

‘Still want to go in?’

Danny hesitated a moment and then nodded but, as his world slowly came back into focus so too did the recollection of his dreams. He shook his head.

‘Yes? No?’

‘Maybe you should take him to the hospital?’ The woman hadn’t seen Danny trip over his feet, but she could see he was clearly confused.

Mark frowned at her suggestion. ‘The hospitals would be overrun if parents took kids every time they tripped over themselves. He’s fine.’ Mark turned his back to the woman and his attention back towards his son. ‘You don’t want to go to the aquarium now?’

Danny shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Aren’t we going to swim with the dolphins?!’ Luke’s mood took an instant turn. It wasn’t his birthday, but he was lucky enough to get given the opportunity to swim with the dolphins too and - now - it was about to be taken away from him. Mark didn’t give a shit about Luke’s feelings. He wasn’t his son. If his son didn’t want to go in with the dolphins now then, it was his choice.

Instead of addressing Luke’s concerns, Mark simply told him, ‘Wait here with your brother.’ He headed back to the kiosk in order to ask about the possibility of a refund.

‘I can’t believe you’re ruining this for us,’ Luke said. ‘What is wrong with you?’

‘I just don’t want to do it anymore.’

‘Anymore? You’ve literally gone from wanting to do it, to not wanting to in the blink of an eye! Just because you fell over!’

Danny didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to talk about his “dream”. He wanted to go home.

‘Change of plan…’ Mark approached with a pissed off look on his face. ‘No refunds allowed.’

‘We are going?!’ Luke’s face lit up again.

‘You sure you don’t want to go in with them?’

Danny shook his head. ‘I don’t want to.’

Mark sighed. ‘Okay how’s about this… I’ll go in with your brother. It’s only twenty minutes or so. Then we’ll go and get some food. On the way home, we can stop off and get you a new computer game for your birthday. Sound like a plan?’

Danny nodded, grateful that his dad wasn’t going to force him to go swimming with the dolphins.

‘You up for watching at least?’

Danny hesitated. He nodded.

‘That’s that then. Just need to grab some swimming shorts from the gift shop.’

‘Yes!’ Luke ran ahead and pulled the aquarium door open for them. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Try not to trip up this time.’ Mark put his hand on his son’s shoulder and, together, they headed in.

26

FOREVER SCARRED

There was no jealousy on Danny’s part as he watched his dad and brother prepare to interact with the dolphins. Not even when he saw the beaming smile on his dad’s face after he’d apparently changed his mind about how horrible dolphins were. On the drive down to the aquarium he had been spouting all these hideous facts about the mammals but now he was with them? It was like he’d forgotten everything bad. With the dream still lodged in his brain, Danny wasn’t as able to forget; not even when he asked the trainer if a dolphin and shark had ever bred together, and the trainer had just laughed at him. No. That’s not possible. One is a fish, and one is a mammal. Although the trainer did at least admit, It would be pretty freaky if they did though! Whilst he had shot that idea down, the trainer hadn’t denied any of the horrible facts Mark had re-quoted. He did admit that some dolphins did have a nastier streak to them but, for the most part, they were pretty friendly. Put it this way, we’ve never seen any of that behaviour from our dolphins. His words were enough to ease Mark’s own fears.

Danny’s jealousy only started to creep in after his dad and brother got into the water and the dolphins playfully approached. Danny couldn’t say anything though as it had been his choice not to go into the water. He was hating his own stupid imagination though, because it was the only reason he’d talked himself out of doing the experience. Had he not tripped and sparked himself out, he wouldn’t have dreamed of the crossbreed, and he’d be the one in the water now, splashing around with the dolphins.

With his jealously rising, Danny decided to distract himself. He reached into his pocket and took out his mobile phone before scrolling through the various screens, looking for a pre-installed game to play. The only “good thing” about this experience was that it was short so, he didn’t have to distract himself for very long. His brother and dad would be out soon enough and then they could have a look around the rest of the aquarium before getting something to eat and ending the day in a computer game shop. Hopefully, Danny thought, they wouldn’t be spending the whole time talking about how amazing the dolphins were.

‘What are you doing?!’ Mark didn’t shout but his voice was certainly louder than before, and enough to get Danny’s attention. ‘Get off!’ Danny looked up. His mouth fell open. A dolphin had pinned Mark against the side of the pool. It had used a flipper to pull at Mark’s shorts, exposing his pale backside in the process and… Danny close his eyes as Mark started to scream. ‘GET IT OFF! GET IT THE FUCK OFF!’ The other customers - including Luke and the trainers - were quick to get out of the water as Mark’s dolphin violently thrust into what started off as a tight, puckered arsehole. ‘GET IT OFF ME! PLEASE! SOMEONE GET IT OFF!’

Danny watched in horror as the once relatively clean water clouded with a mixture of both red and brown. Mark’s words played back through Danny’s traumatised brain, ‘Dolphins are arseholes.'

22 YEARS LATER

EPILOGUE

A DIFFERENT PATH

Danny was staring out of the window to the great city beyond. It was his birthday, not that anyone in the office knew. He hadn’t celebrated the day since his father was buggered to death in the aquarium. Not only was that the last time Dan had celebrated his birthday but it was also the last time he’d visited such an attraction.

Married with two kids, his wife didn’t understand his reluctance to take the kids to such a place. He always made a lame excuse; finances are tight, got to work extra shifts in the office. She said she’d take them by herself but, he always put his foot down. He couldn’t recall when exactly, but there came a point in which she stopped asking as she knew what the answer was going to be.

The phone on Dan’s desk started ringing; a sudden but welcome distraction from thoughts of his deceased father. People say you stop hearing loved one’s voices after they pass. That you cling on to their sounds for a short while but then, they’re lost in the mind-fog. Danny wished that were the case with his father. Every year, on the anniversary of his death, Dan could still hear his dad’s loud, pained screaming. Worse; when he closed his eyes, he could still see the shitty, bloody water around where the dolphin was savaging him. The phone was still ringing….

‘Hello?’ Dan recognised the number on the graphite phone’s display. Home was calling. No doubt his wife asking if he was coming home in time for tea. The answer would be “no”. His wife might not have known the exact nature of Mark’s untimely death, but she was still aware it happened. She knew Dan would often go quiet on this day, and for a few days after. Part of his process was staying out until late, then rolling in home - sometimes drunk - and up to bed without the need to talk to, or see, anyone.

‘It’s me.’

‘What’s up? Busy day.’

‘I was just wondering if you were coming home for tea tonight?’

‘I’m afraid not. Got a client’s accounts to get finished. I was doing okay but, he handed up his receipts last night with tomorrow as the deadline. You know how it is.’

‘I know…’ She knew Dan was lying. Whilst he might have had figures to complete, they wouldn’t have had any bearing on the answer. He still wouldn’t have come home even if he’d been sitting back with his feet up. In fairness, Danny did have figures to get done and the deadline was looming but - that didn’t mean he’d been doing them. The majority of his day had been spent staring out of the window, lost in unpleasant thoughts he couldn’t seem to shake no matter how hard he tried. ‘Well I hope they’re not overly complicated for you.’

Dan smiled. ‘No. They’re fine.’

‘Also…’ She hesitated.

‘What’s up?’

‘The kids have been invited to the beach this weekend. Johnny is having a birthday party and the weather is supposed to be good so…’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No, they can’t go. I’d already planned to take them to the forest this weekend. A little camp out and a barbecue…’ None of what Dan was saying was true but, just as he’d never taken his children to any tourist attractions which were remotely fish related - he’d not taken them to the beach either. They were born in the city and had stayed in the city.

‘Oh… Okay… We can’t do that another weekend? All of their friends are going to…’

‘No. I’m sorry. Looks like this might be my last free weekend for a while so…’ Not willing to keep up with his lies, Danny decided to cut the conversation short. ‘Look, I have to go or I’m never going to get the figures done. I’ll talk to you later, okay?’ His hope was that she’d have forgotten the conversation by the time he next saw her. Even if she hadn’t, it gave him enough time to think of more excuses to keep his kids away from the ocean.

‘Okay. Try and have a good day, yeah?’

‘You too. Bye.’ Before she even had a chance to reply, Dan hung the phone up. He paused a moment as he processed the conversation. Then, he turned back to the window and stared down to the city below his tall office building. He sighed. He knew he couldn’t keep his family away from the beach forever but - he couldn’t help but think of a shark-dolphin hybrid out there, swimming around and attacking people. It had all been a dream, smacked into his head by the hard head-butting of the concrete ground when he fell but… What if it were real? What if such a creature was out there waiting to be discovered? Even if it was an impossibility and such a creature could never exist, that didn’t take away from the fact his father had been killed by a dolphin… A fucking dolphin… The mammal everyone deems as being so cute and friendly…

Rapists of the sea.