Shark Beast 2: Paranormal Sharkitivity Read online

  (splish-splash-splish)

  ... and onto the road.

  Remembering what the doctor told her ...

  CLANK-thump-CLANK --

  (careful when you walk, the good doc instructed. Use your good leg first, then the crutches, good leg first, then --)

  Staggering ....

  "... good leg, crutches--ow!--good leg, crutches--ow!--"

  Staggering --

  "--ow!--ow!--ow!--ow!--ow!--OW!--"

  The brace on Phoebe Quinn's leg started its twisted journey from Phoebe's ankle; didn't stop until the top of her thigh. Four straps -- (three unbroken at this point) -- and several metal bars held the brace on, none of which moved that smoothly when Phoebe was walking, let alone running across two front yards, a road, up and down a steep hill --

  -- boom -- her ankle twisted.

  The two metal crutches (which looked like warped fencing swords, or at least her sister thought so) crossed sharply -- twisting Phoebe abruptly -- top slats of the leg brace stabbing -- "Y-y-y-yiiikes," she whispered hotly, through grit teeth. She squinted; blinked; adjusted what straps she could reach, then, with a razor look of determination, Phoebe made her way across the road that separated the two secluded estates at the end of Raven Drive, sending ethereal powder-clouds of fine dirt road sparkling in the moonlit night.

  Bang -- she shouldered her way through the large, elaborate unlocked gate, trespassing her way onto her sister's neighbor's property, past a sign reading "THE ROSSI's" in hard-to-read cursive writing.

  CLANK-THUMP --

  The driveway was steep, and so it was ... one laborious step after ... clank ... another ... the leg brace cutting into her thigh ... CLANK ...

  "C'mon..."

  --CLANK --

  "-- C'mon --"

  She shook her head roughly.

  Focus.

  Plain and simple.

  She continued lurching up the driveway.

  ~ ~ ~

  The Rossi House: deserted.

  Windows dark; the night hung over the entire building with a velvety completeness, as Phoebe, with staggering effort, made her way up the front steps, onto the small front porch. Fell against the door with an awkward thump -- pounded with weary fists, struggled to recapture her breath.

  Could, impossibly, hear the bird fountain across the street.

  She knocked again.

  "Uhhm ... hello?" she whispered hoarsely, into the peephole. Clearing her throat saltily, she knocked again: "Hey, uhmm, this, uh, emergency." Sounded funny thinking it, sounded funnier coming out of her mouth, but ... didn't know what else to say. So she said it again. "Hey! Fierce emergency situation, people! Absolutely! C'mon!"

  Nothing.

  "Typical." Her head drooped, and one of her crutches began to slip from beneath her. Tired ... legs throbbing ... both of them, even the good one ... she blinked heavily, shook her head, readjusted her grip.

  Banged the knocker, firmly.

  "Hellloooo."

  Nothing.

  "Helllooo?"

  Nothing.

  "Um. Yo?"

  Thump -- her forehead bumped against the door. What did you expect? she thought, dully. It's New Year's Eve. Some people actually have lives. Not everyone is a disgraced black sheep homeless volleyball star ... (like you) ... running around, banging on strange people's doors in the middle of the night ... (like you) ...

  Thump.

  Her forehead, against the door again; her drunken resolve, like her left crutch, beginning to slip away again.

  This is not smart.

  Coming out here was a mistake.

  This is it. There are no other neighbors.

  And now there's no time.

  It's too late, too late, too late --

  Suddenly: it came to her.

  "What Would ... Johnny Depp Do?"

  A moonstruck moment. She lifted her head. Deep breath. Clenched her fists; her focus; her resolve.

  Then: the girl with the metal crutches pivoted solidly on her one good, non-brace-wearing leg, and headed around toward the back of the Rossi house.

  ~ ~ ~

  Around the backyard: a big wooden fence.

  Homey, quaint; cute little half moon, delicately handcarved in the dead-heart center of the gate, like the door of an outhouse. High and discreet -- aside for the strangely small artfully-misspelled sign that read:

  TRESSPASSERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

  Giving the sign a blank glare, she curled her lips into a weary shrug. Uhhh ... Whatever. Phoebe threw her arm over the top, reached-reached-reached until she found the latch.

  Fumbled for a second; then --

  Click.

  The gate swung open with a bouncy howdy-partner creeeeak.

  "Got that right," Phoebe grinned wearily, as she crutched her way into the backyard, letting the gate creeeeeeak closed behind her. "Finally, a break for the black sheep. Maybe now we can get this show on --"

  The growl was low, sinewy, snaking through the night.

  Phoebe froze.

  She'd forgotten about the dog.

  ~ ~ ~

  She remembered now.

  The growl continued. A growl bearing wicked tidings. A growl barnacled with gristle and foul, twisted intent. A growl that asked smoothly, simply:

  Well, well, well. What have we here?

  Slowly, Phoebe pivoted on her good leg. A fine silky dread enveloped her. She turned ...

  The dog wasn't big at all -- about the size of a small footstool -- but this footstool was, at the moment, 90 percent teeth; the remaining 10 percent: pure nasty-ass, wicked-torqued trespasser-snacktime attitude.

  Phoebe swallowed jagged, icy night air. The dog's eyes grew shiny. Ragged edges of his scar-lips stretched taut; teeth sprouted out in crazy, hungered angles.

  The growl hitched an eerie half-tone.

  Phoebe felt silly saying it, stupid-insane, but it's the only thing that came to her.

  "Good doggie?"

  The dog blinked; was silent.

  And then it attacked.

  ~ ~ ~

  "No! Wait! Stop -- bad doggie! Bad doggie! SERIOUSLY --"

  As the dog -- "Moonpie," his big black fraying collar warned the world -- lunged for her, Phoebe reacted instantly, pure sports-ingrained instinct, twisting at the waist, bringing up her heavily braced leg.

  (... good leg, crutches, good leg ...)

  The pain immediate, staggering; her entire left side aflame. Bright flashes pin-sparkled her eyes, chewed into the tender parts of her brain -- all this before the dog hit. When the animal actually made contact --

  (explosion)

  -- a loud CHUNK as rock-headed dog skull smashed into Terminator-metallic leg brace. Phoebe choked, the horizon spun madly, and she found herself on damp, harsh grass.

  Moonpie -- and his skull -- seemed, dispiritingly, pretty much unaffected.

  To prove it, the dog clamped hungrily onto the metal brace rods and started ripping his head back and forth, trying to rip the metal "shell" off his prey -- to get to the real meat. Phoebe, sight and senses pinwheeling, blindly lifted her leg, her brace, and the dog high into the air. The frothing animal, clueless to his sudden airborne status, whipped with abrupt, jerky frantic spasms, stubby-legs flailing everywhere, rabidly (and with fierce grisly glee) intent on shredding, tearing, destroying -- possibly eating -- the shiny metal he was grinding between his jagged teeth.

  Phoebe gasped, swallowing great gallons of fresh New Year's air. Stretched out her arms, grabbing at the dark, flailing, flopping -- until finally the weight of the frenzied little creature pulled her over on her side. Pain scalpeled her hip, the brace twisted her leg and --

  Moonpie yipped suddenly, caught underneath the weight of the brace, and backed off, just for a second --

  -- which was long enough for Phoebe to squinty-eye-aim and swing her brace leg right at the dog's head --

  -- those jagged teeth peeling out from underneath that widening feral grin --

  -- and miss the mad-dog
completely, smashing her leg against a rock.

  Phoebe bit hard. Gasping, tongue-swollen: "Ohhh oo ... are tho tot-ahly ... one ... baaahd dawwhg ... " She rolled, or tried to. The sky spun. Her arm caught beneath her.

  Moonpie rushed her again. This time, however, he avoided the brace completely. Instead, he sank those gator teeth into the soft, moonlit flesh of Phoebe's good leg.

  "OooOOh you mu-tant--!"

  What happened next happened quickly, involuntarily: Phoebe twisted, lifted her leg brace high, high, high ... and scissored it downward against her good leg, clipping the dog hard in the head with a guillotine CHUNNK. Moonpie yelped, wriggled wildly from between her legs, scampering madly backwards, dizzy with head-quaking, herky-jerky eye-blinks, leaving a trail of guttural snarls and wounded, simpering whimpers in its gimping four-legged wake, disappearing in the far end of the yard.

  Without thinking, Phoebe whipped empty air with her good leg, again ... again ... again --

  Then, as if two heavily gloved hands had grabbed her brain and gave it a solid, merciless twist, she felt her consciousness compress ... then burst into a shower of shadowy numbness. Felt her limbs slip back into the grass, her ankles go loose, and her head loll ... gently ... to the ... side ...

  Vision darkened at the edges, started to close in on itself. Somewhere, in the foggy deep back parts of her brain, she knew this wasn't good, wasn't smart, out here, the night, in the ...

  Get up

  Get to a phone.

  "Emer ... gen ... ceeeee," she wheezed loopily, the word useless and so faraway.

  Get up before it's too late.

  (I miss the clouds)

  She bit down -- hard -- into her bottom lip, and pop! Suddenly, relentlessly, overwhelmingly: awake. She made a groggy attempt to lift her head out of the grass, buuut ... her head bounced back into the grass, lolling sideways ... and through double-vision eyes Phoebe caught a smeary glimpse of the sour beastie limp-hopping spastically toward its doghouse ... running on three legs, the fourth one curling upwards, a withered spider's leg, making no contact with the ground ...

  Phoebe felt a twitch of guilt --

  -- for about a millionth of a second, the time it took her hand, seemingly of its own power, to reach down her good leg and turn damp with blood. The pulsing hot touch startled her, and, fresh with anger, she sat up immediately. Stumbled to what-was-left-of-her-feet. Took a step, gritting her teeth as pain took a couple of cheap shots to her lower regions ...

  "Ohhh, Johnny Depp, sweet Johnny Dee ..."

  Another step, and then: that snaky growl again, slithering from yonder in the dark.

  Phoebe wasn't in the mood.

  She growled back.

  The growling in the faraway dark stopped.

  "Good choice, Moonie," she muttered; shook her head, and took a slow, solid step toward the back porch. Felt a mini-wave of delirium splash up against her, so she tightened her grip on her crutches, and with an ex-volleyball star's determination; mantraed: "Can't stop me, Pain, cause you ain't even there. Ain't even there, Pain, can't stop me, 'cause you ...

  She hobble-stepped one step closer to the porch.

  "... ain't even ..."

  Another wave of delirium, sloshing her brain hard against the far side of her skull.

  "... there-re-re-re ..."

  Phoebe's eyes went glassy and rolled slowly up, up, up, taking the horizon with them. She wobbled; counter-balanced; wobbled again; and then the brace arced sweetly into the bloody hollow of her good knee --

  "Ohhhhh, golly," she whistled airily.

  -- and she toppled, an aching, bleeding mess, to the ground.

  Her eyes blinkered and rolled, blinkered and rolled, sending the moon into spiraling loops. Then, again, snaking though the darkness:

  That growl.

  Approaching.

  Approaching --

  ~ ~ ~

  Her last definable thought, as she slip slid slid like Alice down the sweet rabbit hole of her unconsciousness ...

  READ IT ... READ THE E-MAIL ...

  READ IT PLESE ...

  - CHAPTER SIX -

  T H E E - M A I L

  I AM SMANTHA PARIS I AM HIDING UNDER A BED

  HOSTAGES DOWNSTARS

  SOMEONE BAD IS DOWN THERE

  KILLING THEM

  ONE_BY_ONE

  BLOOD_LOTS

  LOTS

  SCHREMING

  PLEASE SATY STAY WITH ME UNTIL HE COMES UP AND FINDS ME

  I DON"T WANT TO DIE ALONE

  PLEASE

  I MISS THECLOUDS

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2010 by Russ Cooper

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Chapter I

  The Most Heartbroken Girl In Rome

  A wineglass moon.

  A paintburst sky.

  A bedlam of Italian stars.

  3:00 am.

  #

  La città dei sette colli--"the city of the seven hills"--was darkly submerged, the dusky depths of twilight hours away.

  Late as it was--and it was late indeed--the neighborhood was moon-luminous, ripe and radiant with the very magic that had bewitched the Eternal City for near thirty centuries now. The street, cobbled and twisty, coiled the close-crushed buildings while above balconies sprouted on the maddest of whims, windows lurched at impulsive, contrary angles, and rooftops ran wild with the unconquerable vigor and passione that, night or day, beats the heart of Rome.

  Suddenly, below: movement.

  Dressed only in slippers, nightgown, and a lonesome moonsilver pendant, a tousle-haired girl took sleepwalker steps down a tangled cobble street. In her hand, a tightly-closed umbrella trailing behind her with a metronomic tap-tap-tap; in her face, a look of misty distance; in her eyes, nothing, nothing at all.

  The most heartbroken girl in Rome made her way out of the shadows.

  A pretty girl, beautiful even, but now, hobbling so emptily, looking so 24-years-sad, it was hard to miss that this was a young woman who'd found out the hard way why Rome is known as the land where l'amore domina senza regole--"love rules without rules."

  The street grew preposterous. Night-colors slid over her; suddenly--an alley, drunk with shadows, appeared around a corner. Above, a fat balcony cat's jewel-eyes glowered--a mournful yowl--then those sour eyes disappeared, leaving only restless Italian stars to witness.

  With no hesitation at all, the most heartbroken girl in Rome disappeared into the shadows.

  #

  The cobblestone alley burst open, and there it was.

  Neptune rising from stone depths on a creamy frolic of rock, erupting from the palatial foundation of the Palazzo Pilo. Seahorses plunging crazed and wild to the triumphant charge of triton horns. The opal pool--sixty-five feet and 300 years of it--floodlit, mesmerizing and auroral, sparkling in the night, showcasing its own constellation of stars made of wish-coins cast over the shoulders of travelers from all over the world. And, of course, always, the endless roar, that rock candy sound, gushing, splashing, soaring. The sound of virgin waters unleashed.

  Fontana di Trevi.

  The Trevi Fountain.

  The girl stepped out from the shadows into the piazza, facing the grand rush of marble and water.

  The city suddenly spun into a deep careening dazzle; for a moment, it all played out in the depths of one sad pair of lonely, faraway eyes. Those eyes regaining their ghostly frost, the most heartbroken girl in Rome, dragging her slippers and out-of-place umbrella, headed for the fountain... tap... tap... tap... past a fanciful streetlamp, down mushroom-colored steps; standing, finally, at the base of the fountain's stage-wide basin, marble marauders leaping toward her, the prismatic blur of a myriad waterfalls spiraling like crystal fireworks in their wake.

  Water sparked, stone frothed -- and then the young woman kicked off one slipper, then the other, tugged absently at a single shoulder strap, sending the gown fluttering to the cobbled ground.

  Naked, except for the pendant
around her long soft neck--and the umbrella at her side--the most heartbroken girl in Rome stepped into icy Trevi waters.

  #

  She waded halfway, where she could feel the churn and pull of the waterfalls. Easing into the water, she lifted the umbrella, pointed it to the far dark night.

  A ruby star shot across the sky.

  "C'è un temporale," she whispered, in a bedtime story voice. And then, with a casual motion, click--the umbrella took shape, and three thin ribbon-shadows fell from inside the hood with silent splashes into the cold waters.

  Eerily, they began spinning around her.

  Asps.

  She had prepared to scoop them up to her breast, but -- unnecessary. Between them, the copper-eyed, razor-tongued serpents bit four times, then aimlessly minnowed away. The girl shivered, leaning back, floating, staring up at the sky. Within seconds the poison began to burn. Limbs numb, throat swelling shut. Everything spun hallucinatory.

  The sky burst.

  She submerged.

  Down down down--

  ---but something within started to rise, even as her body started to break down, and she looked up through the wet and froth and, yes, there, again, that ruby shooting star spiking the sky. Watched it, from the depths of her own twilight hour, until, finally, it was gone.

  And so was she.

  The most heartbroken girl in Rome, nothing but mortal ruins now, cloaked in Rome's sweetest waters.

  Along with a secret, hidden in plain sight, in the rush and roar, beneath a wineglass moon, a paintburst sky, a bedlam of Italian stars.

  -- Chapter II --

  Trouble at the Auction House

  Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti.

  The Spanish Steps.

  Six days later.

  #

  "Scusi, scusi..."

  Another young woman, The Tardiest Girl In Rome (which was saying something), also 24-years-old, this one by the name of Isabella Parker, running up the steps, all 138 of them, late again. She had to backtrack steps a few times--dropped her bracelet once, her scarf twice, something else entirely (maybe; not sure; if she did, couldn't find it)--all the while, back and forth, looking at her watch.