No, once was enough. Once had even been too much. No matter how much I try not to think about it, the images continue to haunt me.

  It replays now, again.

  My son, Julien, launches off the shore on his water skis. It’s not even thirty seconds before an enormous shadow appears in the water beneath him. The black and white creature rises up from the shallows, homing in on him like some kind of torpedo. My son and his friends are at Cross Island, not far from our home. It happened a year ago, to the day. My son was twenty-two at the time. His friends shooting the video were all about the same age. It was supposed to be a day of fun.

  In the video, my son is unaware of the creature coming up under him. The others on boat see it, though, and start screaming. The camera wobbles as the girl holding it (his girlfriend, Madison) shouts and points frantically; my son smiles and waves, oblivious.

  Orcas are not known to attack humans. In fact, there is no credible evidence of such an attack ever happening in the wild throughout history. All known attacks by orcas on people have occurred in captivity.

  My son is in the wild, camping with his friends at a secluded island. In fact, their tents are barely visible on shore behind them. It’s late spring in Alaska. Heaven on Earth, if you ask me.

  The camera shakes violently as the creature appears directly below my son. Madison waves and points frantically. Her arm and hand practically fills the screen as she screams at him to look down. My son smiles and appears to chuckle.

  Everyone on board the speedboat frantically points and gestures at the water.

  Julien finally looks down—

  Just as the orca explodes from beneath him, knocking him to the side. My son loses his grip on the tow rope handle. One of his skis pops off his foot and goes flying a good twenty feet up into the air.

  The camera spins wildly. Flashing images of the sky, the power boat’s deck, sandaled feet, water, foam, the engine. I’m told the creature bit down on Julien’s arm and dragged him underwater. The wildly swinging phone camera captures a single frame of my son’s terrified face a foot or two beneath the surface of the water, right before Madison drops it. The phone ends up wedged somewhere under the bench. Though the image is dark and blurry, the audio still picks up the screaming, the crying, the confusion.

  “It pulled him under!”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t see him!”

  “He’s gone!”

  “Julien! Julien!”

  “Go back, go back!”

  “Turn the fuck around!”

  It goes on like this for many minutes, with his girlfriend sobbing in the background. Her father—owner of the speedboat—calls the coast guard. And finally, the cell phone is picked up and turned off.

  Julien’s body was never found. Everyone assumed he’d drowned. The worst part about losing him is not having any idea what happened to him. All we know is he disappeared under the water and never came back up.

  But one thing had been strikingly clear in one of the images: the saddle mark behind the dorsal fin of the attacking orca. No two killer whale marks are the same. It’s how marine biologists recognize one individual whale from another. Elaine Morrow, a local oceanographer, confirmed the marking belonged to a male bull, perhaps the biggest she’d ever seen. His name is Kimko-21.

  Julien’s death is the first confirmed killing of a human by an orca.

  Ever.

  She showed me a picture of its saddle marking, a gray swath about two feet in length, reaching down to either side of the creature with a black dagger-shaped spot in the middle of the splotch. It didn’t take more than a few seconds of comparing the markings from the cell phone video to archive images in her office to verify she’d gotten it right. The markings matched identically, one in the same.

  Julien’s killer had a name.

  Kimko-21.

  I grieved for my son for a year, and it nearly cost me my marriage, too. My job at the sheriff’s department went on as usual, but I felt like a shell of what I had been. My son―my only child―had been drowned by a killer whale.

  It made no sense. And I spent a year trying to come to terms with his death, trying to not a hate a wild animal. After all, Julien had been water skiing in its territory. Animals defend their territory, after all. Nothing unusual in that regard. Mother Nature has her ways, humans have ours, and they don’t always line up.

  But no amount of rationalizing it helped, and my anger only seemed to grow. Orcas were smart, playful even. Four confirmed killings in captivity, true, but it had to be them acting out, right? Captivity had to drive them crazy. Such large animals cannot cope with being confined in small areas. Humans have a psychological breaking point, why not orcas? Even animals can only be pushed so far.

  Or so I told myself.

  Then why did this one—in the wild with the entire ocean at its disposal—choose to attack my son and drag him down to his death?

  I didn’t know, but when the year of his death anniversary came up, as Elaine informed me that Kimko-21 and his pod had returned to the area, one thing became crystal clear... I needed closure.

  I needed revenge.

  Whether true or not, I convinced myself this thing was a menace to ocean dwellers. After all, if it killed my son at a popular beach area, what would stop it from doing the same to someone else? My answer came up empty. Nothing. Nothing would stop it from killing another parent’s child. Julien hadn’t been doing anything worthy of attracting its attention. It’s not as though he and his friends found a whale and tormented it until it lashed out. He’d been minding his own business, and Kimko-21 attacked him out of nowhere. For no reason. Something about these events stuck in my head and refused to let go. It felt like this monster of the deep targeted my son on purpose. Whether or not an orca could be a purposeful killer, I had no idea… but it sure seemed that way. My dreams sometimes told tales of ancestral debts or grudges. Perhaps some ancient ancestor of mine crossed paths with the orca’s spirit centuries ago. Sounded like Inuit mysticism, but stranger things have happened. Either way, I couldn’t simply let it go.

  And so, after receiving the call the night before from Elaine, I did what needed to be done...

  I loaded up my small watercraft―a twenty-foot motorboat. I stocked it with food, drinks, and my high-powered rifle. Actually two rifles, in case I lost one. The boat came equipped with an old harpoon and about forty feet of rope. I doubt I would need it, but knowing I had a Plan B to fall back on gave me confidence.

  I called in sick to work Tuesday morning and drove my boat to a launching dock a half mile from my house.

  With the sun rising, I went through the motions of launching my little vessel. Once it was free of the trailer and secured to the dock, I drove the truck and trailer up the beach and parked it out of sight, under the shade of a tree. I had called in sick, after all.

  With luck, this would only take a few hours.

  Without luck, who knew?

  My poor wife hadn’t a clue what I planned. I couldn’t tell her I was going after my son’s killer in the interest of safety. She wouldn’t have believed a word. She would have said, “Luke, we all know what you are doing. You are going after the fish for revenge. But it is only a dumb fish and you will get yourself killed.”

  Except it wasn’t a dumb fish. First, it’s a mammal. Second, its brain is twice as big as ours, with nearly as many folds.

  It’s smart enough to know not to kill a human.

  But it did it anyway.

  It killed my human. My son.

  And I cannot live with the anger of his death another second.

  There is not much for me to do other than to kill the devil whale who did this to Julien, to me, and to his mom. I’m going to stop it from hurting anyone else.

  At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  I step into the motorboat, start it, and head off to find the whales. They’re going to be near Cross Island, according to Elaine. I don’t need a picture of the orca’s gray saddle mark.

  The image of it is seared into my memory.

  With my rifles safe in their carry cases at my feet, and even the old harpoon nestled behind the starboard side bench, I head west into the brightening morning.

  Chapter Two

  There is a small sea rising with the wind coming up from the west. A low fog hangs over the slate gray water.

  I hunch my shoulders against the wind and steer the motorboat through the labyrinthine field of ice floes, navigating among the frozen obstacles like a pro. Soon, the treacherous maze of jagged white islands gives way to open water. Here, there is an added drag from westerly winds and ice continues to materialize through the phantasmagorical mist, but the floes are few and far between and easily avoidable.

  The motorboat moves steadily, easily, leaving behind a wake spreading behind me like an ever widening gyre. The sound of the motor is both ugly and beautiful in the silence. I am alone on the sea. A locked-down cooler holds a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, beer, water bottles, and some Cheetos. Hardly a great hunter’s feast, but it will do. I don’t expect to be out here long. Two well-placed shots near the blowhole should end the beast’s reign of terror, even if it doesn’t know it’s ‘reigning’ or ‘terrorizing’ anyone.

  “It sure as hell has terrorized me dreams,” I say into the cool morning air, my breath fogging, my voice swallowed up by the chugging motor behind me.

  I did not need a compass. I knew the area well enough. I grew up nearby, had fished these seas all my life. Never hunted a killer whale before, though. There’s a first for everything.

  At present, the surface is flat, save for the occasional black swirls of current. Below me, the sea teems with life. The sea had provided much for me... food, recreation, adventure.

  It has stolen from me, too. Stolen that which I valued more than anything else on this Earth.

  The fog dissipates more and more the farther from shore I go. The sun sits low in the sky and gives no warmth, a mockery of heat. Above, a pelican flaps gently, powerfully, its obese beak a testament to evolution. In the distance an oil tanker rides low in the water, seemingly stationary, though it’s heading in toward shore, a massive and strange alien in these forlorn surroundings. With the fog gone, the sun shines brighter, glaring off the glassy surface. I pause and use one hand to draw my hood around my face, forming a slit for my eyes. Better than sunglasses.

  An hour later, I cut the engine and sit in silence, the boat rocking, small waves lapping at the hull, the wind constant and cold. Nearby is the large ice floe I’d been searching for. For it is here that the orcas return, year after year, including Kimko-21, the big thirty-foot bull who’d killed my son.

  According to Elaine, the pod of killer whales (known collectively as X-Pod) should be in this area now, having returned from their yearly migration to warmer waters, breeding grounds, and the salmon runs. It is also up here, apparently, where they stalk innocent water skiers and drag them to their deaths.

  I stand in the boat, rocking it, and shield my eyes. It is just after noon. The wide sheet of ice next to me mimics a sort of shore. But it is an illusion. In reality, I am nearly two dozen miles from land. Just me, my boat, and my guns… and a harpoon.

  Seeing nothing, I consult with my satellite phone’s GPS and confirm I’m at the right spot. I’ve been here before, after all. I’ve fished the area. When I was young, my family had a thirty-three-foot fishing boat. My father knew these waters like the back of his hand. I’d gone on many, many fishing trips.

  I’m in the right spot. Nothing to do other than sit and wait. The boat rises and falls with a swell. My rifles are ready. Both are oiled, loaded, and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Both outfitted with scopes. One’s a .30-06 I’ve been shooting since childhood. The other’s a .308 bolt action I ended up taking home a few years after we confiscated it from a deceased man’s house. He had no family to claim the belongings.

  Two bullets at the blowhole, and this nightmare will be over. Either the .30-06 or the .308 have the power to fell the beast, if I’m accurate. A bigger rifle would make the job easier, but I don’t have an elephant gun. Besides, a .444 Marlin would probably flip me straight out of my little boat.

  Just two shots, and I can go home, Julien avenged, the area safe again, even if I am the only person who gives a shit it’s safe. There is no great send off for me to hunt this black and white devil. No one cares my son’s killer roams the seas freely. No one believes the beaches and docks are not safe. A fluke incident, they called it.

  If it was a fluke, then did the beast pull my son down to drown? Only my son. Not the boat. No one else. Why him?

  Why hadn’t it released him?

  Because they are animals, some would say.

  Except these are cunning animals, so cunning they can work together to drown much bigger whales over a period of hours.

  So cunning, that whole aquatic attractions are featured around them.

  So cunning, they have gone centuries without killing man. A smart move on their part.

  Except now, there is one confirmed kill in the wild.

  Julien. And the bastard whale responsible for my son’s death is around here somewhere. It will pay, whether it makes sense or not.

  It makes sense to me. And if it killed my son, it will kill again, even if unlikely.

  I am a sheriff. My job is to protect and defend.

  Well, I’m doing that now.

  Along with a little added revenge.

  I’m not a perfect man.

  I feel hate. I feel anger. I also feel a little madness.

  Like Ahab, I’ve been consumed by my own white whale.

  Except mine is white and black, and it’s down there now.

  Somewhere...

  Killer Whale

  is available at:

  Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Begin the Witches series, featuring Allison Lopez, here:

  The Witch and the Gentleman

  The Witches Series Book 1

  by J.R. Rain and Matthew S. Cox

  (read on for a sample)

  “It is on those mist-filled nights, when the wind is strong and curious, when the air is alive with something unseen but felt, that you finally believe...oh, yes, you finally believe what your heart has always known: magic is real and it is everywhere.”

  —Diary of a Pagan

  Chapter One

  “Hi, this is Allison. Thank you for calling The Psychic Hotline. How can I help you see into the future?”

  As I spoke and waited, I reached for my protein drink, which I had just whipped up a few minutes earlier. I found that protein drinks helped me connect with the spirits.

  Yes, I’m a telephone psychic. A pretty good one, too. I’m also a personal trainer and hoped to someday start my own gym. A gym that focused on the body and the mind. Lofty dreams, but we all need them.

  I set aside my protein drink, cleared my thoughts and glanced at my computer screen. According to my screen, I had a call on the line, a local number, too. I worked from home, plugged into my company’s switchboard, so to speak. I wore headphones with a microphone, and as soon as I clicked on the number blinking on the screen, we were live.

  The wonders of technology.

  I adjusted my headphones. The previous callers were already out of sight, out of mind. A couple of kids wanted to mess with me. Except, of course, I sensed their names quickly enough to blow their minds. Then again, they were high and it wasn’t very hard to blow their minds.

  Yeah, we got a lot of jerks who liked to mess with us. It was part of the business. We also got a lot of people who needed real help. Little did the callers know they were getting a real psychic. A powerful psychic. One whose gifts were enhanced nearly daily, thanks to my unusual source of power. From a friend of mine who just happened to be a vampire.

  Now, I focused on connecting my energy to the person on the other end of the line. I heard crackling in the background, followed by faint street noise.

  It wasn’t hard to connect with others on a psychic level once I learned how to do it. I practiced like a kid who had just learned how to ride a bike. It was a sort of mental reaching out. However, I knew it went further than just the mental. It was a brief connecting of souls. My soul connecting with the caller’s. Except he didn’t know I was connecting. Yes, I already knew it was a “he” on the other end of the line. And he had a very, very heavy problem weighing on his heart.

  “Can you hear me?” asked a hesitant voice.

  “Loud and clear,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  Through my living room’s sliding glass door, the posh apartment building across the street caught some of the mid-afternoon sun, and glittered magnificently. A seagull swooped in that moment over my balcony, which was unusual because my Beverly Hills apartment was at least ten miles from the ocean.

  “I’m not sure,” said the man.

  “Then let’s start with your name,” I said.

  “My name is Pete.”

  I sensed his crackling nerves on the other end of the line. This wasn’t going to be your everyday phone call to a psychic. What it was going to be, I didn’t know, but I sensed a lot of pain on his end. A friggin’ lot.

  “Don’t be nervous,” I said, and was not very surprised when the big seagull landed on my balcony wall. The big bird was missing a leg, but did a fine job of balancing on just one. How in the hell a seagull could lose an entire leg was beyond me.

  No, not beyond me. Not these days. Just as I speculated on the leg, I saw an image of a young man holding what appeared to be a BB gun. The projectile went through the seagull’s leg, breaking it and nearly severing it. Nearly. The poor guy had spent weeks in agony until he’d finally chewed off his own leg with his beak.

  The animal kingdom endures horrors that few of us could fathom, I had once read. I believe it.

  “Well, how much information do I give you, and how much information do I, you know, wait to receive?” he asked.