Breeding Ground Part 7

"I'm fine," she said without glancing down. "Do we happen to have a lantern down there?"

"No. Why?"

She sighed. "Because it's so dark out I can't see a thing. We've got two choices," she said as she continued looking around. "Stay in the work pod until daylight and then paddle out, or try to paddle out of here now. I've got to warn you, though. If we choose the latter, we'll be paddling blindly. The dark is impenetrable. My eyes still haven't adjusted to it."

"I don't think we have a choice," John informed her as he climbed up the ladder rung. His head popped out of the hatch. "The further this vessel drifts, the worse the readings come back."

Alex turned to look at him. Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that north equals good and south equals bad. The further south we drift, the more contaminated the water supply becomes. I'm picking up increasingly acidic levels. We need to paddle north. Now. At least we know that north equals uncontaminated water."

She nodded. "Let's do it then. Tell the others to follow you up."

Alex carefully made her way to the life raft and stepped into it. After confirming that it was working properly, she motioned for the others to follow suit. One by one they exited the hatch, scurried out onto the small deck, and then alighted into the raft. Once all four of them were safely inside of it, she handed the paddles to Vlad and Peac.o.c.k.

"You two paddle," she instructed. "John, continue to take your readings." She pulled a pair of high-powered binoculars out of the pouch attached to her belt. "I'm going to see if I can make out any signs of land ahead."

All four of them went to work. Slowly but steadily they made their way in the opposite direction of the abandoned Methuselah II.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n," Peac.o.c.k muttered. "I sure wish we didn't have to paddle against the current. Can't anything go right today?"

"The current wants to take us south," Vlad explained when Alex and John looked at Peac.o.c.k quizzically. "And we need to move north."

John nodded. "The readings come back better and better the further north we go." He frowned. "Something strange, though. The water really must have changed in a hundred million years. No matter how far north we go, it still doesn't have the chemical breakdown it should. There is a small level of acidic compound no matter what."

"It won't be drinkable?" Peac.o.c.k asked on a grunt as he continued paddling against the current.

"I think it'll be drinkable," John conjectured. "It doesn't seem to have any more acid than an orange this far north."

"I see light!" Alex excitedly announced. "Just up ahead!" She lowered the binoculars and turned a bit to face her crew. "It looks red tinted. Just like you said the atmosphere looked when we first breached Earth, John."

He absently inclined his head, then continued to take readings. Hanging over the raft, his body stilled. "Uh, Alex..."

"Yeah?" She lifted the binoculars back up to her eyes and gazed around. There was something funny going on in her stomach, some weird sixth sense or something.

"Why is it that you can make out light coming up ahead, but we can't see any from where we're at?"

His statement nailed that funny feeling on the head. Her muscles tensed. Paddling around in what was presumably the ocean, they should have been able to make out light from any position. It was as if they weren't yet out in the open but would be soon.

Which could only mean that they were currently in an enclosed s.p.a.ce.

"I don't know," she said slowly, lowering the binoculars. Something was wrong-very, very wrong. A feeling of panic began to engulf her, making her heart rate increase. "Paddle faster," she whispered. "A lot faster."

Peac.o.c.k and Vlad began paddling as if their lives depended upon it.

A red-tinted light slowly began to penetrate the dark s.p.a.ce. The further north the raft got, the more they could see. Alex squinted as she made out an odd shape coming up about a half mile out. She raised the binoculars, hoping to get a better look.

Her breathing stilled.

Oh. My. G.o.d.

"J-John," Alex stuttered out. She lowered the binoculars and turned to him wide-eyed. "Tell me if you see the same thing I do," she said hoa.r.s.ely.

John's eyes had widened in reaction to hers. Without saying a word, he picked up the binoculars and-

"Jesus H. Christ."

"What?" Peac.o.c.k shouted. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"Shh!" Alex chastised. "Lower your voice!" she said in a firm whisper.

Vlad's eyes rounded. "Tell us. Tell us now."

John lowered the binoculars. He c.o.c.ked his head to regard Vlad and Peac.o.c.k. "There's a big tooth up ahead," he breathed out. "A f.u.c.king tooth."

"A...tooth?" This from Peac.o.c.k.

Alex took a deep breath. Her heart was beating so fast she could hear blood pounding in her ears. "Look over there," she rasped out, pointing to the left. "Look."

All eyes turned to where she was pointing. As the red-tinted light further penetrated the darkness, a wall slowly became visible. A wall that appeared to be made out of muscle. A wall that was contracting...

Breathing.

"Holy G.o.d," Peac.o.c.k muttered, paddling faster. "What in the h.e.l.l are we inside of?" His eyes looked wild, as wild with fear as Alex felt.

The tooth loomed closer. It was ma.s.sively huge and yet only the top half was visible. The bottom was completely submerged in water.

"We're in some sort of sea creature," she breathed out. "It must have swallowed Methuselah II when we free-fell from the sky."

"I think it's sleeping," John said in a quiet voice. She could tell he was doing his best to contain his alarm. His eyes were as round as hers. "Let's make sure it stays that way," he murmured.

Alex forced her breathing to steady. Do not panic. Do not panic! "Look at how ma.s.sive the mouth is. I can't see a beginning or an end to it. I only know it's a mouth because of the tooth."

"It has to have more than one tooth," Vlad announced in a forced hush. She could see how labored his breathing was becoming. "Which means the radius of its mouth doesn't bear thinking on."

"Calm down," Alex said to Vlad, forcing herself to do the same. "Your chest is heaving up and down. Calm it down now."

"There's a second tooth," John said quietly. "It's set approximately ten feet from the first tooth. There's a third one-another ten feet. This f.u.c.ker," he shakily concluded, "is G.o.dd.a.m.n huge."

"But asleep," Alex reminded her crew. She was shaking like a leaf on the inside, but sounded surprisingly calm. "Otherwise its mouth wouldn't continuously be open."

"What kind of a sea creature sleeps with its mouth half in and half out of the water?" Peac.o.c.k asked. The tight leash reining in his panic was growing more and more threadbare, she could tell. All of them were feeling the same way.

"It has to be bigger than a blue whale," Alex whispered. "With a body size like that it needs a lot of food. Maybe it skims the water for it while asleep," she said in a hopeful voice. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "It has the incisors of a predator, though, so it probably hunts while awake."

"f.u.c.k!"

"Keep it quiet, P-man," John murmured. "We all feel the same way, bro. Let's not wake sleeping beauty up, okay buddy?"