Prologue

The waves crashing against the bow sounded as if trucks were crashing into brick walls, sending ocean spray all over the fishermen.

“Captain, we ain’t gettin’ enough crab to go through with this, we have to turn back!” Screamed Jones, one of the cooks.

“We can’t turn back now, we’ve been searching for weeks and I know the Spot’s around here!” retorted the Captain

“Bu.. he’s righ.. Jack” Screamed Caleb, barely audible from this distance “We’re hardly catching enough to pay for the gas!”

“NO” Erupted the Captain “We keep going until we get to the spot ”
I, watching all of this from the bridge, was only the mapper. I had been on this ship for less than a week, and I already hated everyone on this tub except for jones and the Captain. The Captain believed in me and Jones was the only one who looked out for me, plus he was also the youngest person on the ship; only 3 years older than me. The Captain had known that he would need one for this haul and he thought that an intern would suffice. Considering I didn’t know what sea we were in, I’d say he was dead wrong. I was sure that he would regret it later. I couldn’t even name all 50 states, much less navigate through an ocean.
I wouldn’t have come if I had known that they didn’t even know where they were going. But I needed a job, I had straight A’s in geography, and I lived in Anchorage, being a mapper on a fishing vessel seemed fit... at the time at least.


Chapter 1
The Wave


“Hngggggh huhhh...hnggggh huhhh...”

“Why did I get stuck in the crew quarters ?” I thought
It was almost impossible to live around 17 grown men, much less sleep around them. I almost would rather be up on the deck with the night crew.
Then I guess he was listening because the Captain rammed through the door screaming.

“Everybody up! We found it! We found it!”

“Ughh found What?” Muttered Jones

“The Spot”

The ‘just got up’ incoordination mixed with the rocking of the boat did not go well. The only thing that kept me going is the fact that we finally found it!

“I can finally go home!” I screamed at the top of my lungs
Half of the sailors paused and looked at me then got back hauling up what looked like thousands of king crab, the ship smelled like an old sushi store. I looked around trying to find the captain and I finally found him in the last place I expected; helping them catch the crabs.

“What the h*** are you doing?” I sputtered in awe.

“The more we catch the more money I make, and we might never find this place again, I ain’t giving up a chance like this” He replied.

“But couldn’t we just mark this place on our GPS ?” I wondered.

“No they move but, they normally settle in the winter so you might want to anyway, run up there and dial in our coordinates”
So I did what I was told and ran past the piles of stunned crabs along the salty wet floor, nearly slipping a couple times, up to the bridge, but when I saw the coordinates, I knew something was screwed up.
The GPS read :84.7° N 113.4° W.

“But thats just a couple hundred miles away from the North Pole”
I decided that that was Malfunction, dialed it in just in case, and ran back down to tell the Captain.

“Hey Michael!” Screamed Jones “Come over here!”
I looked over and saw all of the crew standing by the rail and looking out towards something on the starboard side.
When I got there, it became immediately obvious what they were looking at. There was a large black object looming off to the side.

“I didn’t know we were this close to land” Said one of the fishermen.

“Hey kid” Said another one to me “What island is that?”
I whipped out my ‘handy telescope’. I paused for a second. I remembered the coordinates. I was afraid to look.
I took a deep breath and peered through. My heart skipped a beat, maybe two.


“Thats no island” I said.
Everyone starred at me, wordless, waiting.

“Thats a wave”
No one said a thing. Silence. It lasted for what seemed like hours

“Get the life boats prepared for launch”said the captain.
It took a second for the sailors to realize that they had ben given orders.

“I Said GET THE LIFE BOATS PREPARED!!!”
They ran away, to the life boats, then the Captain turned to me and Jones.

“You two grab the rations and get back up here ASAP!”
We ran down to storage, and as we were jumping down the stairs I heard the captain say:

“You go too caleb!”


“Grab that case of water, Mike” said Jones “I’m gonna run up to the kitchen and grab what I can You two stay here”

“Roger, Jonesy... you know this is all yer fault kid”
I was anticipating this from him from the moment I spotted the wave

“What are you talking about?!”, I screamed

“It was you who told the cap bout’ this ‘crab pot’, if it wasn’t fer you, we’d just be fishin in our regular spots, and none of our lives would be in danger from a wave!”
I was dumbfounded. He was right, I did tell the captain about this place when I heard men on another fishing vessel talking about.

After grueling minutes of dragging heavy food supplies up levels of stairs, the captain ran down the stairs, and screamed:

“Get up lads, the wave’s almost here!”
The words echoed around my head. My brain stopped. The only thought going through my head was: ‘I’m dead... I’m dead...’
I could hear their screams, but I would’t wake up. Caleb grabbed me by the collar and dragged up the stairs knocking my spine against each step, it felt like each one of my vertebrae was being dislodged from each other.


Then the wave hit.
The whole boat lurched sideways, almost tipping the whole thing over, crates broke open and fell down the stairs Water rushed down the stairs faster a stampede of elephants, returning all of us to the bottom of the stairs, crushing our bodies against the wall of the store room. It felt like al of the bones in my body were being crushed, and I was pretty sure some them did. I could’t breath, my heart was slowing down, That’s when I blacked out.