It reached the cabin wall, and stopped its forward movement. It was then they began to be pulled over. Maggie started to scream, and whatever she had been cooking, was now on fire as an orange glow appeared from the galley doors. Harris smelled oily smoke.

“We’re going to be sunk.” William Harris held his wife tight as water poured over the gunwale and began to flood the deck.

“Cut it,” Maggie screamed.

He felt shocked at the blinding obvious suggestion and that he had never even thought of it. He dived for the tackle cabinet and fiddled with the catch. Inside there was a new knife, silver sharp, and serrated on one side. He grabbed it and leapt to the rope sawing and hacking, the tight fibers resisting every slice.

The Sulacco moaned again as she was pulled onto her side, and the gunwale went level with the water. A waterfall commenced pouring over the side. He wrapped his hand around the rope, and realized it had gone slack. He drew it in a few feet, and saw his spotlight bobbing beside him. Harris snatched at it, and shone it down into the water.

The devil himself stared back.

The thing rose from the black water, and his light shook in his hand as it followed the mountain higher. The rope was still trailing from its mouth that was lined with teeth as big as his head. There looked to be ragged portions of meat and what could have been shreds of clothing caught between them. The monster then surged towards him.

William Harris was still alive when the massive jaws extended to take him and a good portion of Sulacco's wooden railing. He was alive for mere seconds more as they closed on his soft body, the ten-inch serrated blades cutting all the way through him, before it took him down to the darkness below.

He wasn’t alive when the fire in the galley made it to the fuel tank, and blew Maggie and the ship to smithereens.

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 31

National Security Cutter, Bertholf, waters off Mendocino

Vincent Kelly stood in the bridge room of the National Security Cutter. Being aboard the huge Coast Guard vessel never failed to inspire him – modern, well maintained, and with enough firepower to keep the country’s borders secure from any attempt at crime or intrusion.

He looked down at a screen showing an image of the rear deck and saw Reggie there securing their chopper – this time, it was a smaller HH-65 Dolphin, built more for speed and maneuverability than sea air rescue.