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I
n late September, the squid began to wash up on the beaches north of Los Angeles, after most of the tourists had left for the season.

Sturman woke Val one morning in their motel room by softly shaking the Sunday paper in front of her. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, squinting at the newsprint in her face. She read the headline:

The shoal had more or less disappeared after their last dramatic encounter and Sturman’s time in the hospital. There hadn’t been any more attacks on people, and the Weston Institute had been unable to locate the shoal when a new set of researchers headed back out after their ordeal with a Fathometer like Karl’s.

In the rented motel room, Val and Sturman made love and then threw some clothing and gear into a few duffels and went shopping. They bought two large plastic coolers, a few boxes of garbage bags, several bags of ice, and some tarps, and headed north to Santa Barbara in a rented SUV. They spent most of the day cruising up the Southern California Bight from San Diego in the light weekend traffic. The early-fall weather was warm and pleasant, an onshore breeze blowing through the windows of the vehicle.

Val had stayed with Sturman and his dog in the San Diego motel for the past month, tending to his wounds. With three of them in the small unit, the conditions were cramped. None of them minded, though—least of all Bud, who seemed especially fond of his new friend.

She had expected that such close-quarters interaction might result in some friction, but the time they had spent on his boat in the weeks before had apparently paid off. And Sturman made his feelings for her clear. She couldn’t remember being so happy.

He had been pretty useless since he left the hospital, unable to work and struggling with the cast on his arm and shoulder sling. It didn’t really matter anyway, though, since he had lost both his home and business when
Maria
went down.

Val took care of him each night and morning, helping with chores and his bathing. She had spent most of the daylight hours in the lab examining the Humboldt specimens or working on her new paper—a case study detailing the shoal’s parasitic hosts. Her schedule and his lack of one had left Sturman a lot of time to think. He went for walks. He said he thought a lot about Joe. He didn’t drink, and he had almost completely given up smoking.

True to his word, he hadn’t missed Joe’s funeral, and Val had joined him. He had already visited his friend’s grave regularly as he healed, and visited his family often. Val could tell that his guilt was slowly subsiding. His other guilt seemed to subside as well. He had even told her he knew Maria and Joe would both be happy for them.

They reached the beach described in the newspaper just before sunset. The breeze smelled of seaweed and rotting fish, and there were several groups of curious observers who had probably also seen the article about the dying squid. Val realized they should have left Bud in the car as they approached the largest squid on the beach and the dog rushed up to investigate, ignoring Sturman’s shouts. The huge squid helplessly flopped its fins on the sand just above the surf line. Sturman yelled at Bud again, just before he could lick the dying animal’s mantle, and he sat down a few feet away and looked at it.

“Dumb bastard never learns,” he said.

“They say a dog takes after its owner. . . .” She smiled at him.

They stopped next to Bud, and Val set down the large cooler she had been carrying. Perhaps the squid was harmless now, but after what they’d been through, they weren’t taking any chances.

“Look at this old fighter. I almost feel sorry for her.” Sturman poked at the huge, flattened squid with the toe of his shoe. The badly scarred animal, which was missing an arm and the tip of one fin, didn’t seem to feel the touch. It was clearly dying.

Val figured the massive specimen, maybe eight feet long, had to be a female. “Yeah, I know what you mean. They look so pathetic out of the water, don’t they?”

Sturman pointed at the other squid drying out on the sand, which were spread over hundreds of yards down the beach. Gulls screamed as they fought over the rotting flesh. “You think these are all from our shoal, Doc?”

“I don’t know. But they’re incredibly large for Humboldt squid, aren’t they?”

“Beats me. I guess I’ve never seen a small one.” He grinned.

“By their size, I’d say they certainly could be from the shoal we encountered.”

Val snapped a photo of the reddish animal at her feet. Its eye rolled slowly in the socket, its arms turning slightly on the wet sand as a wave rolled up the beach high enough to wet the doomed animal’s flesh. Its arms tensed and reached toward her convulsively. She felt an unexpected twinge of fear, and fought the urge to step back.

Sturman put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Val. This one’s pretty damn big, but it isn’t going to hurt you.”

“Right.” She took a deep breath. “Once we get a few back to the lab, I’ll see if they’re infested with the same parasite as the others. We’ll probably never know for sure if this is the same group, though.”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“No. I guess not.” Val patted the cooler. “Well, it was pointless bringing this.”

“I won’t say I told you so.” He began to unfold a tarp on the sand. “Maybe we can drag her back on this.”

“You think she’ll keep until we can get her on ice?”

“Probably. So it’s female, huh? I still have no idea how you can tell if they’re boys or girls.”

“Takes practice. Give me a hand, cowboy.”

“She’s not even dead yet.”

“Close enough.”

Sturman lifted his left arm and moved it around a bit. It was healing nicely. “Yeah, I think my arm’s workable.” He knelt by her. “Hey, Val . . . why do you think they’re dying now?”

“Might be the parasites, but it’s probably just old age. Humboldt squid don’t live long after maturity, you know. Mere months.”

“Candles in the wind, huh?”

“You could say that. It’s their time now.”

“If they don’t live that long, maybe they’re not as big a threat as everyone thinks.”

Val realized that he, like everyone else, probably didn’t grasp where the oceans were headed. “There will be more, Will. A lot more.”

“More than there should be?”

Val shrugged. “How many should there be? There are certainly fewer sharks and whales than there were before people came along. And more Humboldt squid.”

He looked away from her toward the distorted orange sun setting over the water. She followed his gaze, neither of them speaking as they got lost in the moment.

Despite the vastness of the ocean, and its seeming ability to shrug off the destructive actions of mankind, it was changing. Val looked out at the sea, where four powerboats belched exhaust as they cruised noisily down the coastline. She looked at an oil platform several miles offshore, solidly built on top of the seabed. She looked at the trash amassed at the high-tide line just above them—water bottles, cigarette butts, Styrofoam bits. She could do her part, and that was all.

She looked back at the man in the cowboy hat.

“Let’s get to work, partner.”

M
any fathoms below the turmoil on the surface of the ocean, it was calm. Silence dominated.

A storm had just moved in from across the Pacific, and where air met sea the waves slammed mightily against one another as they fought to establish order. Their efforts would eventually yield a rhythmic series of swells from the chaotic input of energy, but only after a fierce battle. Farther down the water column, the energy of the storm steadily dissipated, until in the dim light a few hundred feet below the surface, there was no indication that there was any storm at all. There, the pelagic world was tranquil, quiet. Seemingly empty.

But in the sluggish, steady current of the ocean’s cool womb, it was not empty. There was life.

There, they drifted.

To most creatures, even those designed to live and hunt in the open ocean, they were invisible. For not only were they miniscule, they were also transparent, with bodies composed almost entirely of the water that surrounded them. Only when they rarely happened upon shallower waters to be struck by direct sunlight could even their gossamer outer skins and solid structures be detected.

For now, they were small. They had come into being and dispersed across the open ocean only recently. Their primitive nervous systems, larger structures, and deadly stinging cells would not fully develop for some time. For now, they were just beginning to attempt the aimless, rhythmic pulsations that pushed them blindly through the water in no apparent direction, as they lacked the ability to see. Most of them would not survive.

But others would.

They were countless in number, millions upon millions.

Billions.

They had survived almost since the dawn of time, but would soon thrive in a way their kind never had, with few predators and less competition than in any point in history. But they would not relish this victory. They could not process any thoughts without a true brain. They simply existed.

So they would grow, slowly, as they fed on passing food. They would mature. The ocean currents would gather them in their indifference into a massive horde. They would drift into prey.

They would immobilize it.

And then, on their living prey, they would feed.

Publishing a novel, from the idea phase until it hits the shelves, is not possible without the efforts and advice of many. The author’s gratitude goes out to the following wonderful people:

To my wife, April, thank you for your endless patience and for putting up with me during my mental absences.

To my brother, Matt, thank you for your creativity and keen eye for detail.

To KT, thank you for making me believe in my work.

To my mom, thank you for your support and faith.

To cousins Terry and John, thank you for the legal advice.

To my editor, Gary Goldstein, thank you for bringing in all the right people and swinging for the fence—and for enjoying the manuscript in the first place.

To the copyeditors, cover artists, sales staff, and all the professionals at Kensington Books involved in this process, thank you for making my dream a reality and giving this book a supreme shot at success.

And to my agent, Jim Donovan, thank you for taking a chance on a new author and showing him the publishing ropes.

PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

Copyright © 2013 Ryan Lockwood

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

ISBN: 978-0-7860-3287-7

First electronic edition: July 2013

ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3288-4

ISBN-10: 0-7860-3288-X