Chapter 5: A Single Stroke From
Death
The massively ugly and gruesome fish was circling beneath the boat again, looking up at its target, waiting to strike once more.
It still smelled the fish blood and guts that were smeared and clinging on to all sides of the boat. The predator fish believed that the boat was an injured and weakened prey, since the boat wasn’t moving around or trying to escape. Trevor and Gary ran inside the cabin to get ahold of their senses and to keep calm. They were only temporarily safe, but it was better than being outside by the hand railings out on the open deck.
Scott was inside the cabin already leaning up against the windows, peering out over the boat’s handrails at the ocean, looking desperately in all directions around the boat from front to back for any signs of the monster fish.
“We need to contact the Local Coast
Guard, Gary. We need help quickly!
What if it continues to attack the boat? You can't even reach the driver's seat without chancing another impact like that.” Trevor said in a panicky voice.
Gary was pacing back and forth, “We
need to catch the fish on camera at
least once before we head back to
shore, and we don’t have any footage
of it yet. I’m going to head outside as quickly as possible and strap myself tightly into the driver’s seat and try and lure the fish into trailing us from behind the boat. I’ll keep my foot on the gas, don’t worry. You and Scott stay inside and keep an eye out around the boat. I’ll need you to yell out to me if you see anything moving and from which direction. The water is a bit choppy so stay sharp.”
Trevor and Scott agreed as they
watched Gary slip outside through
the cabin door and jog quickly around to the front of the boat, sliding into the driver’s seat in a hurry. As Trevor and Scott scanned the surrounding ocean with their eyes, and as Gary’s hands had grabbed the seat belt and buckle to his seat, a sound like a sonic boom paired with another impact to the back of the bottom of the boat caused Trevor and Scott to fly upward, banging their heads up on the cabin ceiling. The monster fish had just landed its second attack after swimming upward from beneath with such great force that it had unfortunately ripped a piece of the motorboat’s backside along with a small chunk of the rear deck.
Trevor and Scott’s heads were throbbing in pain as they began to gather themselves upright again. “Are you hurt, Scott?” Trevor asked.
“My head hurts like crazy bro.” Scott exclaimed, still rubbing his head.
"I'm a bit sore too, I scraped my side against this corner wall. Well, I’m glad we’re both conscious. Can you walk okay?” Trevor asked.
Scott said, “Yeah, I should be fine. Let’s check on Gary.“ They both headed out of the cabin and quickly grabbed on to the boat’s handrails, moving swiftly towards the upper front deck of the boat. They saw that the driver’s seat was empty…
Gary, during this time, had been launched out of his driver’s seat into the open ocean from the collision of the fish slamming its open mouth on the bottom backside of the boat. Gary was now floating on his backside, his head dizzy, with sharp pain shooting up and down his lower spine. The impact of that incident had pinched some of his spine’s nerve tissue and shook the bones in his spine as he had flown forward like a catapulted mannequin dummy into the cold waters. The monstrosity was swimming beneath the surface as the water was settling from the friction it had caused, masses of trapped air bubbles gave the ocean a temporary white blanket.
Within those fleeting moments, the currents of the ocean had pulled Gary a hundred and ten feet away from the boat. Trevor and Scott spotted Gary floating in front of them up ahead and began to yell out, "Gary! Gary! Wake up! Start swimming back to the boat NOW! C’mon man, listen to me! Let’s Go! Wake up, you’ve got to hurry. Let’s go!”
Gary clenched his teeth and grunted out a, “Yeah!”, forcing the words through the sore pain.
I’m coming, I’m coming. Gary
thought to himself. It hurt too much to even speak.
He thought immediately about his surroundings, being in the middle of the ocean and not knowing where the predator fish was. Was it beneath him? Behind him? In front of him, ready to swallow him whole?
There was no time for much thinking. Gary clenched his teeth as tightly as he could, and began swimming back to the boat in front of him as fast as he could. Fighting against the pain in his lower back, he was kicking his feet powerfully and his arms were dipping and pushing with all his remaining strength.
Fifty-five feet away from the boat now. Trevor yelled out, “You’re almost here man, hurry up!!” Trevor and Scott waited at the front handrails of the boat, both of them leaning forward with their arms stretched and hands out, their fingers shaking from nervousness.
Gary closed his eyes feeling also frightened and nervous and took in a big inhale of oxygen before lowering his head beneath the water’s surface and power stroking out the last fifteen feet distancing him from the boat. As he lifted his head up to breathe and pushed one last stroke forward, he saw that the boat was now only a few inches away from his face. He had made it! He couldn't help but smile out of relief.
He stretched both of his arms upward and both Trevor and Scott’s hands gripped tightly around his forearms pulling him up so fast, that the handrails rubbed hard against his chest and stomach. They lifted him over the rails and plopped down back onto the front deck together sopping wet. They were all feeling relieved and facing forward looking out towards the ocean, when the massive thirty-seven foot long fish exploded through the waters once again directly in front of them. They were getting the closest visual of the fish’s details in all of its glory.
As it was flying upward, it showed its gargantuan mouth and large, sharp jaws. Its head seemed to be made of armor and the rest of its body was facing sideways ten feet above the ocean's surface. One eye was looking directly at them, piercing into their scared souls. Its mouth was wide-open revealing jagged, sharply armored like teeth that seemed connected directly to its rock hard helmeted head and sleekly designed body. It was at least four tons, a whopping eight thousand pounds heavy. It was like a swimming, super-sized military tank with a ferocious biting power and it loomed over them in this moment of a few seconds, while it was airborne, that seemed to last minutes. The fear in their eyes and the fear in their hearts made them paralyzed and shocked to their very core in that split moment. As the fish began to sink straight back down beneath the surface of the waters, the only thing that could be heard among the three witnesses was Scott’s shaky and stuttering voice, “Oh man! No way! That's… uh…um... a Dunkleosteus!”
Thank you for reading Chapter 5 in its entirety, I hope you enjoyed it so far.
IF YOU MISSED THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINKS PROVIDED BELOW
CHAPTER # 1: FEROCIOUS FISHING
CHAPTER # 2: UNLUCKY TIMING
CHAPTER # 3: A VERY BAD CHOICE
CHAPTER # 4: A GUTSY GIVING
Written By Verbal D & Co-Inspired By My Lil’ Bro Jacob
All Gifs Used From Giphy.com
Next Post coming tomorrow
My very own wonderful gif logo provided to me by the generous and kindhearted @papa-pepper Thanks again very much!