Sharkade

Lights flickered in and out of life at the old Branwich Pier. An often-overlooked seaside destination, Branwich prided itself for unusually flat terrain and ocean views that reached out to infinity. Its beach wasn’t exactly award-winning and the water wasn’t that magical transparent blue some beaches impossibly had, but those who lived there and those who dared to go there knew there was no other place on the coast like it.

Nearby alternatives boasted internationally ranked fish and chips, other places smelt that specific smell that took you right back to when you were tiny and your parents first showed you the edge of the world you knew up to that point. Any other point on the map you could have gone to may have been more memorable, more iconic, more relevant.

But Branwich…Branwich still had a unique charm to it.

The sort of charm you try to convince yourself of when it is currently the venue of your potential demise.

That was the thing with the moon’s sudden increase of movement. To think that giant rock in space we’ve been to a handful of times was the key to how water moved on our Earth. That if it were to just move out of line just a little bit was enough to change everything we possibly knew.

A place like Branwich with such flat topography, with that margin above sea level, with such bad sea defences…it was only a matter of time for a disaster to happen. It was just baffling just how incredibly dangerous things could be.

The inhabitants of the Branston Amusements building had no idea how crazy things were going to be. A locally-owned establishment, the Branston family ran and maintained an arcade and amusements building the best they could in this current economy. Not caving to pressure of being bought out, Branston Amusements felt as rundown as it could be while still being relatively safe and operational to the public. It still had its regulars, whether that be local veterans living out trauma through pellet gun games or the youths stuck in this town exploiting arcade games for tickets. Everything in Branwich felt out of touch. Out of reach. All except for the ocean, that just rushed towards it.

A bit too strongly. The sea defences were known to be a little out of repair, but not even in their prime would Branwich be shown to be entirely immune from the kinds of tides they were getting.

NASA had warned of tidal flooding to be in the rise, pun not intended. With the certain wobble the moon was going through, Branwich, and honestly, most of the East Coast, were overwhelmed by the tides and the floods. At the centre of it all was Branston Amusements.

The biggest flood struck most by surprise. Water was getting beyond waist deep. The indoor mini-golf course, already written off, was now entirely submerged. Several people were trapped inside.

And they weren’t alone.

“No signal,” Bobby said to his concerned girlfriend.

“It must be the storm,” Paige said. Her eyes peeked through the small window overhead. Darkness. Intermittent lightning. Thunder rattled the weakening lights of the arcade.

Survival instinct spread throughout the patrons of the arcade. Don’t drown. That was the biggest thing. Those who remained inside the arcade were the strong swimmers that could make it through the rushing tide. Those who didn’t were either dragged under or dragged away.

The leader of the teenagers intentionally breaking machines in the arcade stood atop one such machine in a panic. Half of his squad were nowhere to be seen, the ones that were still accounted for clung for their lives against surrounding machines.

The ebb and flow of the harsh flood rocked them. Slot machines were the worst to try and get some purchase. Much like the pinball machines, it was pretty easy to tilt them. In this case that meant that with the added weight of all those coins trapped inside, coupled with the worried weight of an adolescent taking the machine off-balance added up to disaster.

Vin reached out to his friend. He didn’t know his friend was already a goner. The machine shifted too much. If the weight of the machine crashing down didn’t get the poor guy, it was what lurked in the water.

Frank, the local veteran, saw fear that he hadn’t faced for decades. Nothing in his life would have trained him for this scenario. The flooding of an arcade. The danger of electrical shocks every where. The sight of people crushed under monoliths that ate coins and spat out tickets.

It wasn’t long until Frank was got. His screams filled the arcade, drowning out the dull sounds of video game music bubbling under the surface. Those who heard him winced and wished to avoid the same fate. The screams. The sight. The smell of his blood. The crunching of bone.

Frank punched at the unseen attacker. Before they had found out what they were, the customers of Branston Amusements thought it was just their clothing being caught on machines they couldn’t see through the murky water. Then they thought it was the desperate clinging of survivors unable to swim strong enough under the surface of the tide. Then they realised what was happening by the blood. By the bodies.

It was sharks.

It was like something from a midnight movie but it was happening, of all places, in Branwich. The water had reached that high. The tides were that strong. The sharks were that threatened. Bobby thought that killer sharks were just for the movies. He read somewhere that people killed sharks a disproportionate amount compared to sharks killing people. Bobby supposed that’s probably because one side made the bigger effort to mess with the other’s ecology.

“This can’t be happening,” Paige kept repeating to herself. Bobby patted her shoulder, but she just screamed at the sensation.

“Don’t worry,” Bobby comforted. “We just need to get out of here.”

It was easier said than done. The arcade attendants were already done for. Michael and Donna Branston had moved back to Branwich to take over the family business and escape the big city. It was the only escape they could make. That amount of time away from the ocean of course led to a lapse in swimming aptitude.

The shark attacking Frank ripped off his hand. There was no scream. Just inconvenience. He had already lost that one in war. If anything it gave him opportunity. As the shark took a liking to Frank’s false hand, Frank took to using his other good one to attack back. Eyes. Snout. Gills. The only way to take on something trying to eat you that’s literally made of teeth is to fight dirty. And to avoid their teeth.

Frank thought back to what his father used to tell him about dolphins. How dolphins were apparently scared of sharks, or at least, weak to sharks. Whatever that meant. He assumed his father meant that dolphins swim so fast and are shaped in such a way to perfectly joust an enemy shark. It made Frank chuckle.

As he lost the fight and his life in the jaws of his antagonist.

Bobby knew he didn’t have much longer left. The tide continued to rise and eventually the floor they were on was going to be just as flooded. Just as submerged as the golf course in the basement. He knew exactly how to go about things. Branston Amusements had become rundown over the years, but Bobby watched it happen. This was his home away from home growing up. He had never left, and while he never wanted to be stuck in this town, he especially never wanted to be stuck inside Branston Amusements

He knew the way up and out to the roof. It was the only way. He briefed his girlfriend on the plan. She thought he was crazy, but not as crazy as the fact there were real life killer sharks in the water around them. To herself, Paige wondered if Bobby knew. About what she had been doing while Bobby wasted away his life trying to win the big prizes in the arcade. By all rights, she felt she didn’t deserve his attempts to save her. She had already ruined that for herself.

Bobby was oblivious. He didn’t know if anything was going on, and that didn’t matter to him anyway. He just wanted to get out and stay alive. So they went.

The two of them scrambled up and over and around the machines, making their way to the staircase at the back of the building. Up there it was just a short sprint to the roof access. Until then, they did their best to make it through. Sparks shot overhead. Machines zapped and crackled under the water, losing power and channeling it around them. It wasn’t just the sharks that were the issue but all the hazards created by those putting together Branston Amusements. The entire building was going under, underwater, and there was no recovery from that.

Vin had tried to escape another way. Through the front, rather than the back. He was a strong swimmer, he knew how to bounce and splash his way through to the doors at the other side of the building. Sure, he could have been pulled under at any moment, but he was a man on a mission. A man without his band. He needed to leave in order to preserve what was left of his peers.

It was unfortunate when his attempt to pass through the threshold was met by resistance. Several tonnes of water being pulled towards him. There was no chance of him holding his breath that long. Not with his lungs that destroyed by underage smoking trying to be cool on the pier.

Bobby and Paige did their best to escape. Up was the way, not through. It was the mistake everyone else had made, but not them. Make it to the stairs, make it up towards the roof, that was the way.

The plan seemed fool-proof. Not a near-miss to be seen. The path less travelled proved the most fruitful. They danced, hand in hand, skipping over all obstacles in their way. The water almost consumed them by the time they made it to the staircase. Bobby led the way. The two of them crawled up the stairs, pulling themselves higher and higher by the bannister.

“Ahhh!” Paige screamed. Bobby wheeled around.

Her foot was caught. Held. Pulled.

There was no time. Bobby had to power through. He made it to the roof access door. He spun the handle. He barged a shoulder into it. Nothing. He wrenched it. Nothing. Both feet on the doorframe. Pull.

Nothing.

Bobby looked back to Paige, but she was gone. The water rippled to stillness.

Then a single fin broke the surface of the water. Copper twinged his nostrils as the aura of blood reached him. This was it. Tides continued to rise. It was above his nostrils now.

Bang. Bang. BANG.

The roof access door crashed open. Bobby flushed through the portal, a single gloved hand grabbing his, pulling him up.

And out.

And to the roof.

Bobby spat out the salty water he had trapped in his panic. He looked around for any other survivors, but there were none.

Just a helicopter. A pilot. And an escape.