Peter Benchley's Creature Read Online Free PDF Page B

button.
    He emerged from the shelter of the submersible cradle, crossed the deck and knelt beside the box. Facing aft to shade the flashlight beam with his back, he followed the lip of the lid from one end to the other. On the far side, only a few feet from the edge of the fantail, with the ship's wake boiling as it rose and fell beneath him, he saw a design etched in the bronze: a . tiny swastika. Beneath it was a button.
    He pressed the button, heard a click, then a hiss, and the lid of the box began to rise.
    He knelt, stunned, for a moment as he watched the lid move up tantalizingly slowly, rising at no more than an inch a second.
    When it was about half open, he got to his feet, turned on his camera, raised it to his eye, focused it and waited for the beep signaling that the flash was ready to fire.
    The light was dim; the lid shadowed the interior of the box, the view through the lens was shimmery and amorphous. The box was full of liquid.
    He thought. . . was that a face? No, not. . . but it was something, and facelike.
    There was a sudden thrashing in the liquid, and flashes of what looked like steel.
    For a fraction of a second, Webber felt pain, then a rush of warmth, then a feeling of being dragged underwater. And then, as he died, the bizarre sensation that he was being eaten.

    8

    IT needed to feed, and it fed until it could feed no more. It drank, sucking ravenously, inefficiently, until its viscera refused to accept any more of the warm, salty fluid.
    Once nourished, it was still disoriented and confused. There was motion and instability and, when it rose from its box,, an alarming lack. Its gills fluttered, gasping for sustenance, but found none until it submerged again.
    Nerve impulses fired randomly in its brain, crossing barren synapses, unable to sort responses. It was programmed with answers, but, in its frenzy, it was unable to find them.
    It sensed that sustenance was nearby, and so, in desperation, it emerged again from the safety of its box and sensed its surroundings.
    There, just there. The dark and welcoming world to which it must return.
    It was bereft of knowledge but keen in instinct. It recognized few imperatives but was compelled to obey the ones it knew. Its survival depended on fuel and protection.
    It had no powers of innovation, but it did have enormous strength, and that strength was what it called upon now.
    Trailing streaks of mucous slime, it moved to the far end of the box and began to push. Though increasingly starved for oxygen, its brain was able to generate electrical impulses that charged its muscle fibers.

    The bow of the ship buried itself in a trough, then the stern rose. The box slid forward, pushing the creature with it. But then the bow recovered and climbed toward the sky, and as the stern fell rapidly, there was a tiny interstice when the box was weightless.
    The box moved aft, teetered on the edge of the fantail and tumbled into the sea.
    As soon as it felt the cold, comforting confinement of salt water, its systems responded with instantaneous regeneration. The creature soared downward through the night sea, infused with the primitive perception that it was once again where it should be.
    The ship pitched and slewed its way toward the lee of an island as a blood-spattered Nikon camera rolled back and forth across the afterdeck.

    PART THREE
    1996 WATERBORO

    9

    SIMON Chase leaned close to the television monitor in the boat's cabin and shaded it with his hand. The summer sun was still low in the sky, and its brilliance flooded through the windows and washed out definition on the green screen. The slowly moving white dot was barely visible.
    With his finger Chase traced a line on the screen, checked it against a compass and said, "Here she comes. Swing around to one-eighty."
    "What's she doing?" asked the mate, Tall Man Palmer, as he spun the wheel to the right and headed south. "Been out to Block for breakfast, coming back to Waterboro for lunch?"
    "I doubt she's