Extinct

By Charles Wilson

Charles Wilson has received the highest praise from authors such as John Grisham and from reviewers, including being termed "Wizard Plotter" by the Los Angeles Times. Now, he has created his most chilling story yet-- a fast-paced thriller so realistic it will take your breath away and keep you riveted to the page.

From the Gulf of Mexico's warm shallow waters...to the deepest parts of the Pacific...terror comes to the surface...

Six-year-old Paul Haines watches as two older boys dive into a coastal river...and don't come up. His mother, Carolyn, a charter boat captain on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, finds herself embroiled in the tragedy to an extent she could never have imagined.

Carolyn joins the marine biologist Alan Freeman in the hunt for a creature that is terrorizing the waters along the Gulf Coast. But neither of them could have envisioned exactly what kind of danger they are facing.

Yet one man, Admiral Vandiver, does know what this creature is, and how it has come into the shallows. And his secret obsession with it will force him, as well as Paul, Carolyn and Alan, into a race against time...and a race toward death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jun 15, 1997
• ISBN: 9781466828322

Charles Wilson

Charles Wilson grew up in West Virginia and has written for several newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has worked on the staff of The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine and has rounded up beef cattle on horseback at his uncle’s ranch.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

COASTAL MISSISSIPPI—THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1:00 P.M.

Dustin pointed his finger in the six-year-old’s face. This is as far as you go, Paul—I mean it.

Paul stared at the finger, and then past Dustin to the river spreading out across a wide channel behind the teenager’s back. Nearer the water a second teenager smiled at the confrontation as he unbuttoned his shirt. Dustin looked at him. You going to help me, Skip?

You’re the one who let him come with us, Skip said. Tie him to a tree.

Paul narrowed his eyes. Dustin tried again. I know you can swim fine, bud, but I told your mother you wouldn’t go near the water.

What about you? Paul asked.

"I told her you wouldn’t go in the water, not us," Dustin said.

Paul stared past him again. Across the river a heron suddenly flapped up into the bright sunlight. Curving its long neck back into an S above its body, the bird turned across the vast expanse of marshland extending out from the far side of the channel toward the long Interstate 10 bridge in the distance—and Paul’s gaze followed the bird’s flight.

I’ve got some gum, Dustin said.

Paul’s eyes went to the pockets of the teenager’s jeans.

Dustin pulled out a flattened pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint. I’ll give you this now and buy you a sucker the next time I’m at the store.

Paul weighed the offer with one eye nearly closed. He held out his hand.

Dustin said, You promise?

Paul nodded.

He’s lying, Skip said. He had his shirt off now and was stepping out of his jeans.

Paul reached for the pack.

Dustin pulled it back.

Promise, Paul said in a low voice.

I heard a big bull alligator got after some people here yesterday, Dustin said.

Paul smiled mischievously.

He knows you’re lying now, Skip said. In his undershorts now, he stepped to a frayed rope hanging down from a limb of a tall oak leaning out toward the river. Catching a grip high up the rope, he took a step backward, then jumped off the ground and sailed slowly past the bank, dropping into the warm brown water with a splash, sending ripples fanning out in wide circles toward the center of the channel and back against the bank.

Paul took the gum. I’m warning you, Dustin said. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head. Paul, pulling a stick of gum from the pack, theatrically stuck his foot out closer to the bank.

Paul.

The boy smiled.

Dustin slipped off his jeans. You stay here and I’ll let you take a drag off a cigarette when we finish.

Paul pulled his foot back and began to unwrap the gum. Dustin caught the rope and, stepping back a couple of feet, jumped and grabbed it higher and swung out past the bank. Reaching the peak of his swing, he kicked his feet over his head and somersaulted backward into the water.

A large black Labrador trotted out of the trees behind Paul and stopped by the boy. It wagged its thick tail as Paul patted its head.

Skip splashed water in Dustin’s face.

The Labrador edged closer to the bank and barked loudly.

But the dog wasn’t looking toward the boys. Instead, its muzzle was pointed downstream in the direction the river dumped into the Sound and, beyond that, the Gulf of Mexico. A hundred feet in that direction, the water sloshed gently against the bank.

The Labrador barked again.

Dustin got his hands on Skip’s head and pushed down. Laughing, barely able to get a breath before he was dunked, Skip disappeared under the surface. Dustin splashed away from the spot so Skip couldn’t grab his legs. Near the bank, he turned and waited for his friend to reappear. The Labrador barked again. Now it was looking directly at Dustin.

Skip did not reappear.

A few seconds more.

Dustin’s brow wrinkled. Slowly, he began to breaststroke toward the spot. He began to stroke faster. The Labrador barked repeatedly.

Close to the spot Skip disappeared, Dustin took a quick breath and dove under the surface.

Paul walked past the Labrador to the place where the bank started sloping steeply down to the water.

The dog came up beside him.

Paul looked at the foil wrapper from the stick of gum. He used his finger to shape it into a trough and sent it sailing toward the water. It curved in the air and landed at the bottom of the bank, where it sparkled in the sunlight.

Paul stared at the shiny scrap for a moment, then turned and, moving his leg backward down the slope, caught a grip on the edge of the bank and began sliding toward the water.

*   *   *

Carolyn Haines leaned back from the ledger sheets she worked on at the desk in her study. She slipped her glasses off and fluffed her hair off her neck. She looked toward the thermostat next to the glass doors leading out onto the sun deck, then stood and walked to the control.

She adjusted the temperature and started to turn back toward her desk but hesitated and looked toward the doors. She listened for a moment, then walked to the doors and slid the glass back.

Duchess’s loud barking reverberated through the trees between the rear corner of the house and the river.

Carolyn stepped out onto the sun deck and looked through the thick growth.

Paul, she called.

She waited a moment. The Labrador’s barking grew more agitated.

Paul! Dustin!

Duchess barked at a feverish pitch now.

*   *   *

Duchess, her forepaws in the mud at the edge of the bottom of the bank, her head and neck stretched out over the water, barked rapidly, one sharp sound after another. Paul stood next to her. Stop it, Duchess, he said.

She didn’t.

He pulled at her collar. Duchess.

She suddenly moved sideways, bumping into him. He barely kept his balance. Duchess, he said, frowning down at her. She barked toward her left now. Paul looked toward the center of the river. Then he looked down the channel to his left. His eyes narrowing, he pulled a wad of gum from his mouth and looked up the bank to his right. Twenty feet out in the water in front of him, a gentle swirl twisted the surface and a faint ripple moved in a line toward the bank.

Paul! Carolyn yelled as she came out of the trees. You’ll fall in!

He looked up at her as she slid awkwardly down the bank and grabbed his arm. Tugging him back up the slope, she saw his questioning expression. Somehow she knew it wasn’t because of her pulling. At the top of the bank, he looked back at the river again.

Her gaze followed his.

Dustin? he said in a low voice.

Carolyn looked at the clothes scattered under the oak. Her eyes went back to the water. She looked down the river with the current and upriver to her left.

Dustin? Paul said again.

He kept staring toward the center of the channel.

Carolyn brought her hand up to cover her mouth.

CHAPTER 2

BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI—AN HOUR LATER

Alan Freeman came up the side of the street at a fast jog, running effortlessly, his thick, dark hair whipping gently in the breeze, his loose T-shirt damp with perspiration clinging to his wide shoulders. Slowing for a Lincoln Town Car entering Boom Town Casino rising back to his left above the shoreline of Back Bay, he shortened his stride, then came around the automobile’s rear, resuming his pace. A couple of hundred feet farther he passed dozens of shrimping trawlers berthed close together off to his left, their long booms pointed up at an angle out to their sides.

Running past a rambling, broken line of aging boat repair shops, old ice houses and the shuttered front of an abandoned fish-processing plant, he kept his pace. Moments later, he began to slow and came to a walk. He raised the tail of the T-shirt to his face and wiped the perspiration away.

A hundred yards farther, he turned off the pavement onto the graveled area at the front of a wide, one-story concrete-block building. A van sat next to his Jeep parked close to the big, block letters AMERICAN AQUACULTURE, INC., painted in red across the building’s front.

To the side of the entrance a wooden sign proclaimed in bright orange letters:

Dr. Ho Hsiao

Dr. Alan Freeman

Proprietors

As Alan passed the sign he knocked on the wood. He felt stickiness and looked at his knuckles, now brightly illuminated with round spots of orange.

Mrs. Hsiao, a small woman of fifty with coal-black hair hanging down the back of her print dress to her waist, sat behind her desk in the reception area.

Ho touched up the sign again, he said, reaching to the desk to pull a tissue from a box of Kleenex.

She smiled as she looked at his knuckles. He thinks he was an artist in his former life. Your aunt called. She wanted you to call her as soon as you came back.

He wiped as much of the paint from his skin as he could, dropped the Kleenex in the wastebasket at the side of the desk, and reached for the telephone. Whose van is that outside?

A Mr. Herald. He called Ho yesterday and asked if he could bring some boys from a local boxing team over to view an aquaculture operation. Ho is back there practicing the speech on them he’s giving to the Chamber tonight.

His aunt’s line was busy. He replaced the receiver. I’m going to take a quick shower.

As he walked across the hall toward the rest room and showers, he looked down the hallway past the open, double doors at its far end. Ho stood just inside the wide rear area of the building with his back to the doorway. His thin body clad in a white, knee-length lab coat, his long hair hanging against his shoulders, he leaned forward on the side of the fingerling tank, a container closely resembling a child’s wading pool with sides three feet high. Beyond the far side of the tank a dozen boys of widely varying heights seemed to be paying close attention to his words. Alan walked toward the door.

Water cover seventy percent of world, Ho was saying. People in past always think it inexhaustible supply of food. He raised his long finger. But, as I tell you while ago, most sought-after food species in oceans decline two, three percent a year. Population grow more than that each year. Soon not only most sought-after species but all food species begin to decline. If this so, then nature’s balance in seas as we know it not stay the same. To not let that happen, big aquaculture must be world’s future. Grow fish in controlled environment for eating, leave fish in oceans to people for fun catching—if not catch too many.

As Ho stopped his words he smiled broadly. So that it. How you like speech?

The boys, most of them wearing dark windbreakers with BILOXI BOXING CLUB arched in white block letters across their backs and appearing to range in age from around ten or eleven to their early teens, remained silent.

Questions?

The deep voice came from Mr. Herald. A large man, he stood off to the boys’ side. His gray hair unruly, and dressed only casually in a short-sleeved pullover hanging out over a pair of faded khakis, he nevertheless presented an impressive appearance with his erect posture and taut arms that belied his age.

Two of the younger white boys on the team wiggled to the front of the mostly black youths to get a better look inside the tank’s light-green waters, bubbling with oxygen and swarming with the inch-long baby fish.

What about you, San-hi? Mr. Herald asked, looking at one of the oldest boys in the group, a thin Vietnamese with shoulder-length coal-black hair.

He explained it fine, the boy answered.

Armon? Mr. Herald said.

A stocky black youth about the same age as San-hi said, Got it all here in my mind.

Any you others? Mr. Herald asked.

A boy at the rear of the group looked behind him at the half-dozen larger tanks spread out across the concrete floor, each of them six feet high and twice as big around as the fingerling tank. Conveyor belts rumbled as they angled over the rims of the tanks, lifting a shiny-looking coating from the water and carrying it to a garbage-dumpster-sized container against a far wall. What’s that stuff? the boy asked.

Algae and fish droppings, Ho said. We recycle for fertilizer—nothing go to waste. When we build new facility, we send droppings and old water to pond where plants grow. Plants make food and same time filter droppings from water where water come back clean to tanks. Called hydroponics—and save money for not having to buy more water. Ho smiled broadly again.

Anybody else? Mr. Herald asked.

When none of the boys responded, he turned and reached toward a tall stack of slim, white Styrofoam cartons on a metal folding chair behind him. Lifting the cartons and balancing them against his wide chest, he nodded across his shoulder toward the open, double doorway at the rear of the building.

The boys stepped toward him and started stripping him of his load. Easy, men, he said. Out in back to eat. Don’t let any of the trash end up in the bay.

In a moment the boys, each with a carton, were hurrying toward the doors. Mr. Herald looked at Ho. Thank you for your presentation, doctor. They don’t often say much, but they’re listening. Then he followed the team from the building. Ho walked toward Alan.

I do good horse and dog show, Alan?

Alan smiled at his friend’s misquoting of the saying. It’s dog and pony show, Ho.

What different?

The wall telephone at the side of the door leading toward the front offices rang. A few seconds later, it buzzed. Alan stepped to it and lifted the receiver to his ear. Uh-huh?

It’s your aunt, Mrs. Hsiao said. Line one.

He pushed the button. You’re feeling guilty because you haven’t invited me to dinner this week, he said, and smiled.

His aunt didn’t come back with her usual fast words.

Alan, I just saw on TV—Julie’s boy drowned.

CHAPTER 3

Alan looped his tie around his neck and tied it, using his elbows to guide his Jeep along the narrow blacktop passing in front of a mixture of old and new houses backed up against the Pascagoula River. Julie and Barry’s home, an older one-story brick, was near the end of the street, next to a newer two-story stucco contemporary. Two Jackson County Sheriff’s Department cruisers and a yellow Toyota with an empty boat trailer behind it sat off the side of the road. Alan parked behind the trailer, lifted his sports coat from the seat beside him, and walked toward the house.

An older woman answered the front door.

I’m Alan Freeman, a friend of Barry and Julie.

They’re down at the riverbank, Mr. Freeman. They haven’t found the bodies yet.

*   *   *

The place where the boys had gone into the water was along a wooded stretch of river where no houses backed up to the bank. Out in the center of the channel the Sheriff’s Department’s Flotilla Search and Rescue Team pulled grappling hooks behind an eighteen-foot aluminum boat. The Biloxi Fire Department’s Marine Unit had come from Harrison County to join in the search with their seventeen-foot Mako. A young couple Alan guessed to be the parents of the boy who had been with Dustin stood near the water, their arms around each other as they stared toward the boats. Farther up the bank, a dozen people who lived along the river silently watched the search. He spotted Julie’s long blond hair. She and Barry stood close together back in the trees. Julie was shaking her head and crying softly while Barry, his face ashen, tried to comfort her. Standing next to them was a tanned brunette wearing a short-sleeved pullover and loose-fitting shorts; her bare legs were tight and very feminine. Alan thought there was something familiar about her. As he drew closer, she looked at him, holding her stare for a moment, then looked back at Julie and Barry.

Then Barry’s eyes met his. Dressed in the blue trousers and gray shirt of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, where he had served for fifteen years, Barry was a lean, strong man with chiseled features and swept-back blond hair, a man normally commanding respect by his very appearance, but who now looked suddenly frail. As Alan stopped next to him, Julie, tears running down her cheeks, shook her head slowly back and forth. We’ve lost Dustin, Alan, she said. Her hands came up clasped and trembling in front of her chest.

Feeling a great sadness for her, Alan took her gently into his arms. She laid the side of her face against his chest. What are we going to do now? she asked.

I’m sorry, he said, knowing how hollow the words sounded, but not knowing what else to say. He could feel her hands moving against his shirt. The brunette looked at him. Then at a murmur rising from the onlookers, she turned her face toward the river.

The rope trailing the Mako had tightened. The fireman at the rear of the boat started pulling it in as the other man in the craft leaned over him to help. Julie turned toward Barry’s arms. The deputies in the aluminum boat stared toward the Mako.

In seconds, the boat had been pulled backward where the rope ran straight down into the water. The fireman continued to pull it in.

A greenish black shape …

And a slime-coated Christmas tree broke the surface.

Julie started sobbing loudly.

*   *   *

By that night, still nothing, though a pair of divers had been down and two more rescue craft had joined the search. Spaced a few feet apart, the four boats moved in slow formation along the center of the channel pulling ropes disappearing into the water behind their sterns. Occasionally, a man at the bow of one of the boats would flash a light through the tall marsh grass along the far side of the river. A small aluminum boat coming up the river slowed and moved to the far side of the channel to give the boats pulling the grappling hooks plenty of room.

Eddie Fuller, his squat body hunched at the bow of the small boat, tugged at the neck of his coveralls and shook his head.

Somebody’s not coming home no more, he said.

The thinner man holding the outboard motor’s steering arm said, Makes you want to sit closer to the middle of the boat, don’t it?

They moved slowly past the other craft.

*   *   *

As the small boat cleared the dragging area and resumed its speed, Alan, sipping from a cup of coffee as he looked out a window at the rear of Barry and Julie’s living room, turned his eyes back toward the deputies and firemen. He sensed the brunette stop beside him.

She had changed into a skirt and blouse. Barry asked me to thank you for helping get Julie back here, she said. She glanced past a group of highway patrolmen talking at the center of the room to the hall leading to the bedrooms. She’s doing better now, but she doesn’t want him to leave her alone.

Her face came back to his. I’m sorry, I’m Carolyn Haines.

Alan Freeman.

She nodded. I’ve seen you on WLOX talking about aquaculture. My father’s the one who coaches the younger members of the boxing team. The ones who came by today.

He now realized that what had looked familiar to him was her father’s face in hers: her high cheekbones, the shape of her chin widening back smoothly toward her hair, even her dark eyes.

Julie told me you two used to date, she said.

He nodded. I’ve known her since high school. He raised the cup of coffee toward his mouth, but stopped it before it reached his lips. Using the cup as a pointer, he gestured toward the kitchen. They just brewed a fresh pot, if you would like me to get you a cup.

She shook her head. No, thank you. I’m going to have to leave. I need to check on Paul. My son, she added.

Alan had already heard the boy’s name from the older woman in the kitchen. Paul had been with the boys when they went into the river. Carolyn, living four houses up the street, had heard Paul’s dog barking and came down to the water. She had called 911 and then came here. The older woman had seen her as she stood at the front door, hesitating, her hands at the sides of her face as she tried to gain the courage to ring the doorbell. She had sent Paul to his grandmother’s house so he wouldn’t be present when the bodies were carried from the river.

Now Carolyn glanced at the patrolmen again.

They have you blocked in? Alan asked.

They’re about ready to leave, I think. She looked toward the window. Seeming to speak to herself as much as to him she said, With them still lying there under the water … I’d be in worse shape than Julie.

When she looked back at him, she forced a polite smile. I’m glad to have met you. I know Daddy really appreciated your letting the boys come by. Then, without waiting for him to respond, she turned toward the patrolmen. As she neared them, Barry stepped into the entrance to the hallway and called her name, and she changed directions, angling across the carpet toward him.

Alan watched them until they disappeared down the hallway, then turned back to the window.

A thick cloud had moved across the moon, casting the river in dim shadow. The boats were out of sight, but an occasional flash of light reflected off the water and came through the trees to his

Reviews for Extinct

[jefware · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Incoherant

[zmagic69 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Come on who doesn't love a giant shark book, perfect for reading at the pool or better yet the beach.

[preetalina · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book has a shark on its cover. So it's not a spoiler to say that it's about sharks, right? I'm not sure where I picked it up; I think possibly a sale at my library. I love animals and I love books about animals killing people (is that odd? whatever), so this was right up my alley. I finished it in a few hours on a plane trip.I think the comparisons to Michael Crichton need to stop. Anytime I've read a book that has the author described as the "next Crichton" or whatever nonsense, it never pans out. Just stop trying to be what you're not!This book? Nothing like Crichton. The writing was simple - which can be a good thing, but in this case, it wasn't. It was science-light. How the story developed was silly. For example [******SPOILER******]how did the main guy and the women captain fall in love and get engaged within the course of a few days?? Where the hell did that come from? [/SPOILER] Also, everything just seemed to fall into place too conveniently. Some of the getaway scenes didn't make sense to me. I feel like there could have been a lot done with the basic story of [******SPOILER******]megalodons still existing in the deep trenches and coming up every so often for some reason [/SPOILER] but this book completely missed that opportunity.I give it 2.5 stars for keeping me vaguely entertained for a few hours on a long, boring plane trip.