Dream Thing

The thing needed fresh, healthy human beings, and there were none to be had.

Chapter 37

Mark Howard was in that body again, but now the oceans were his element, not his enemy. He reached into the sea, reached impossibly far, and dragged the sea toward him.

He could feel that the body was incredibly powerful, but also aching from exertion. It was pushing itself harder than it had ever pushed.

The mind was working, but the way in which it worked was alien and he couldn’t follow it. He felt his thoughts recoiling and shutting down rather than experiencing the incomprehensible working of the creature’s brain.

There were currents in the mechanics of the thing’s thoughts that he could understand. Confusion. Some helplessness. An overpowering aggression.

Once, he saw a shape in the darkness of the ocean—huge as a submarine, but alive. It avoided the creature. The creature’s aggressive instinct became a song of bloodlust. It must attack. It must kill. The whale was the enemy and sometimes the food.

But its natural instinct was redirected to something else—something that looked almost familiar when Mark Howard saw it in the dream-mind of the alien being.

He recognized what it was and he woke up in a panic. He was drenched in sweat and Sarah was holding his shoulders, saying his name.

By the time he recovered his wits, the memory was stolen. The noontime sun was coming through the window.

“He’s taunting me,” Mark said.

“Who?” Sarah asked.

“Sa Mangsang, that son of a bitch.”

Chapter 38

Mary Ordonez took the mayor’s hand and thanked him profusely in front of the cameras.

“Even in these dark times,” she announced, “we can take heart in the joy of scientific discovery.”

The crowd offered polite but hardly enthusiastic applause.

“What the world hasn’t yet realized is that this is a major discovery. It is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Never before has a specimen of the Colossal Squid been seen alive by human eyes. Now, we have not only seen the creature, we have captured it and brought it to the Chicago Aquarium. I give you the Colossal Squid!”

She pulled the rope, and the curtain plopped to the ground. The crowd made appropriate gasps and murmurs of awe. The creature was truly magnificent and immense.

Just her luck, Mary Ordonez thought. She picked now to make the greatest biological find of the century. Now, when nobody cared.

It had seemed like a miracle when they spotted the thing tangled in a stray fishing net on the surface of the Pacific a hundred miles off Baja. They had been on their annual specimen-restocking trip. Mary had ordered the creature brought aboard and stored in the expandable holding aquariums. Everyone assumed it was dead.

But it started squirming as soon as the hook snagged the net and began to lift. It struggled until it was in the water again, in the holding tank.

Only after it recovered from the relocation did it begin to show its vigor. It lurched around in the narrow tank, looking for a way out. Ordonez knew she had to get it into a decent-sized tank soon in order to keep it alive.

She called the director of the aquarium, who called the director of the City of Chicago promotions and events, who called the mayor. In less than an hour the funds were arranged for the horribly expensive transportation of the Colossal Squid. There was just one aircraft in North America that was outfitted for the job—a whale carrier used for freeing trendy marine mammals. The specialty cargo jet met them in San Diego, where the custom aircraft bay was opened to allow the squid, again in its net, to be hoisted inside.

It was amazing, but here she was showing it off in Chicago, twenty-four hours after she’d first spotted the creature.

“This young specimen will be placed in the aquarium’s largest holding tanks, where it will continue to grow. Nobody knows how large it will be when it reaches adulthood. But it will be huge, and will be the only one of its kind in the world!”

More polite clapping. “If there is a world,” they were all saying to themselves. Impending Armageddon could be a real wet blanket.

Ordonez felt dejected as the crowd shuffled out.

“Cheer up, toots,” said the mayor of Chicago. “This weather thing will blow over and everybody will wake up and smell the roses.” His hand accidentally bumped into the bulge of her bottom.

“They don’t realize how big this is,” she said, mostly to herself. “It’s not even a Giant Squid. It’s a Colossal Squid. Nobody has ever seen one alive. Nobody. Ever.”

“Lying female dog!” It was the director of promotions and events, stomping across the aquarium exhibition hall. “You ripped us off for 1.5 million.”

Ordonez was taken aback by the woman’s ferocity. “What?”

“What’s this about, Colleen?” the mayor demanded.

“She told us it was a one of a kind.”

“It is!” Ordonez insisted.

“It’s not?” the mayor asked.

“She just said that to get the money to move the thing,” the director said. “They’re a dime a dozen. You’re gonna pay for this, Dr. Ordonez.”