The dolphins sped below and past like they weren’t there.
The rays froze. The dolphins had panicked earlier and been on the verge of self-destruction. Now they were putting up a fight. And a good one. They just watched as the speeding mammals disappeared.
The dolphins didn’t look back. The moon-dappled waters ripped past, and they veered sharply upward. They couldn’t see them yet, but their sonars indicated the next group of rays, a dozen, was two pool lengths away. The rolling surface rose up, and they hurtled through it. Bathed in the moonlit air, they breathed in deeply, then knifed back in. A dozen winged silhouettes came into view moments later and the dolphins simply tore through the sea beneath them. As they passed below, one of the dolphins looked up. Their hunters weren’t even moving now. The rays’ silhouettes were frozen, so still the dolphin instinctively thought they might be dead.
They weren’t dead. They were looking right back at it, studying it, studying all of them. Their horned heads turned slightly, watching the gray mammals disappear. The rays were too smart to waste energy chasing prey they knew they couldn’t catch, but they instinctively realized there might be another way to catch the dolphins. It was too late for these rays of course but perhaps not for the next group….
THE NEXT group of rays was already within the mammals’ view, two dozen of them. Strangely, these rays were swimming away from the dolphins, toward the surface.
The dolphins ripped below and past them, already arching up for the next gulp of air.
MANY POOL lengths away, more than a hundred rays were also swimming toward the surface, the water surging past their horned heads. The previous group’s timing had been off, but these rays sensed theirs could be perfect.
THE DOLPHINS hurtled through the seas, moving at nearly forty miles per hour now. Their heartbeats had already slowed considerably. The next group of rays was the last major obstacle. If the dolphins could make it past them, they’d soon be free….
THE RAYS swam higher as fast as they could. The dolphins were rapidly coming closer and within seconds would pass directly below this exact spot. The predators pumped hard, the shimmering plane approaching. They pierced it and, spraying water everywhere, rose straight into the night air. Ascending to different heights, they turned back to the sea. The undulating gray bodies were speeding closer, moments away. The rays just had to hang in the air long enough and then…
THE DOLPHINS were suddenly confused. The rays had disappeared. Speeding through the moon-dappled waters, the mammals turned in every direction. They couldn’t see them anywhere.
THE RAYS were directly above them now. Plunging down, eyes locked. Just like seagulls hunting for fish.
SUDDENLY THE dolphins picked something up. Something above the water.
They didn’t have time to react.
Suddenly big winged bodies were dropping everywhere. Ten landed in front of the herd, a dozen behind it, and they all missed. But half a second later, another platoon landed, and they were on top of them.
Powerful jaws thundered closed on the dolphins’ defenseless bodies, gouging huge chunks from their backs, necks, torsos, and faces. The speeding gray wall disintegrated, shrieking dolphins swimming off in every direction. The mammals thrashed furiously, desperately trying to shake off their attackers. None let go. The rays had wrapped their entire winged bodies around them, and as they were hurtled through the seas their frantically chomping jaws simply tore off more and more meat.
Within minutes, more than half the herd had given up, resigned to death. Others, even though chunks the size of footballs were missing from their sides, tried to swim away in vain. Five dolphins actually shook their attackers off, but soon others leaped on.
Two of the mammals were in such shock they dove toward the depths, not realizing they wouldn’t have enough air to get back up. They didn’t need it. Bleeding severely as they passed the thousand-foot mark, their muscles suddenly stopped working. They entered complete paralysis and, within seconds, drowned. Their corpses floated for a moment until a dozen of the rays they’d passed earlier began to eat them.
The largest dolphin, the 950-pounder that had been the herd’s leader, continued to fight. A few feet below the waterline, it swam as fast as it could, less than five miles per hour now. Seven juvenile rays were tearing away at it, three on its back, two on its stomach, and one each on its face and neck. It swam for another twenty feet, then gave up. It emitted a final cry, a weak gurgling sound, and died. The rays continued to feed on it. They’d already removed 350 pounds, and though their stomachs were full, they worked on the 600 pounds that remained.
But suddenly they stopped.
They leaped off the floating piece of meat and swam away.
Something was coming. Something much larger and considerably more dangerous than they were. One of the adults had left its hiding place in the depths and come to steal their spoils. The smaller animals couldn’t see it yet, but they sensed it. They had first sensed it rising twenty minutes earlier but had been so focused on the hunt, they’d ignored it. But the massive animal was too close to be ignored any longer. They wouldn’t challenge it. If it wanted their food, it would have it—and without a fight. They swam farther from the corpse and looked down. Never before had the juveniles seen an adult come to the surface, not once. An adult that would do so had to be on the verge of starvation. Its massive pumping body slowly appeared below. The juveniles backed farther away still. They didn’t want to be close to it.
They drifted lower, glancing up at the watery moon. Then the gargantuan form rose up in front of the white orb, its curtain-size wings slowly flapping. When the animal reached the floating piece of meat, its purpose was unmistakable. A pair of jaws wide enough to swallow two men whole stretched open, then thundered closed, severing the dolphin in half. The jaws quickly chewed and the animal swallowed.
The juveniles didn’t move.
Another corpse, an inedible infected one, they had determined, was floating nearby. The huge creature swam toward it. Again, the jaws opened and thundered down. But this time, there was no chewing. The creature sensed what the juveniles had: the meat was infected. It deserted the severed pieces and dove down, descending toward the darkness.
After the great animal was gone, the smaller ones returned to the surface. As they edged their horns out of the sea, they heard it: faint, high-pitched screams echoing across the watery plane. A few of the slaughtered dolphins were still alive, hanging on, their cries an offering of fresh meat to whoever could reach them first. This group wasn’t interested. Their stomachs were filled, and they were too tired to swim. They wanted to rest before they continued north again. They slowly descended. Then, floating like a cluster of enormous starfish, they simply closed their eyes.
The ocean’s surface became perfectly quiet. The only sounds were from the wind and the waves. The cries of the dolphins were no more.
CHAPTER 22
IT WAS 7:30 A.M. on this day in the first week of October. The sky was a bleak gray, without a trace of sun anywhere. Good fishing weather. Three tuna fisherman, Don Gilroy, Kurt Hicks, and Mark Balson, had been trailing a pack of seven dolphins for an hour and were now in the waters off of Santa Cruz, a few miles north of Monterey. Tuna fisherman regularly followed dolphins to help them locate their catch. Biologists still didn’t know why, but dolphins and tuna often swam together, dolphins near the surface, tuna a couple hundred feet below it.