Finished brushing the sand from her body, Jennifer stood up. As she did so, she heard a strange noise. It sounded like the chattering bark of a dolphin, but it was louder than the surf. Indeed, it was louder than the screeching gulls still circling overhead. She turned slowly, glanced down at the beach, and gasped.
The beach was alive with a variety of sea life. Dolphins, fish, crabs, and other aquatic life forms flopped and scrabbled in the sand, struggling farther inland. She glanced out at the ocean and saw more creatures beaching themselves in a desperate effort to flee the water. Despite all of her years in the field, Jennifer had never witnessed a beaching as it occurred. She’d always arrived on the scene in the aftermath. And she had certainly never seen an event like this on such a massive scale. Before now, the largest stranding Jennifer had ever witnessed was on Manila Bay in the Philippines when a pod of thirty-seven dolphins had beached themselves. The scene had been horrific and heart-breaking, but even that paled in comparison to what she was now witnessing. Each time the surf crashed into the shore, the waves delivered more marine life. She heard a great braying honk and a large black hump rose out of the water—a whale. The creature heaved its great bulk forward and then lay still as the waves receded around it.
“My God…”
Jennifer supposed that the dolphins and the whale could be reacting to some underwater disturbance—a severe change in temperature or an earthquake, perhaps. Since both were mammals, she knew that their ears were sensitive to large changes in underwater pressure. If something happened to damage their eardrums, it could disorient them, causing them to float up to the surface and beach themselves. But that didn’t explain the hundreds of other sea creatures that were doing the same thing.
Jennifer glanced to her left and right, and saw that the scene was being played out all along the shore. As far as she could see in each direction, the ocean’s population was suddenly heading for land en masse. The wind shifted and she could smell them. Worse was the noise—the cries of the dolphins and whales, the screech of the birds, the patter of crabs running past her (the crustaceans’ numbers now ran in the hundreds), and the strange sounds the fish made as they flopped on the wet sand and struggled to breathe the suffocating oxygen.
Gaping, Jennifer put her hands in her hair and pulled. She barely felt the pain. She stared at the distressed marine life, unable to turn away. Then she did the only thing she could think of—she began screaming at the top of her lungs for help. If her co-workers shouted in response, Jennifer couldn’t hear them. The cacophony from the beach was too loud. But soon enough, she saw figures rushing towards her from the direction of the research station. She shouted again, frantically waving for their attention.
The first two people to arrive on the scene were Paul Phillips, an expert on polytheistic gods of the South Pacific, and his research assistant Lawrence Stine. Both hailed from Oxford University. Phillips was pompous, belligerent, and quite often said things to deliberately provoke in an attempt to garner more attention for himself. His assistant blindly echoed whatever nonsense the doctor proffered, seemingly having no genuine thoughts or theories of his own. Jennifer loathed both men, but at that moment, she was happy to see them.
“Help,” she shouted a third time, pointing at the beach.
Phillips and Stine stared at her almost contemptuously. Then their gaze turned to the shore. They paused. Their eyes widened. Their jaws went slack.
“Dear God,” Phillips gasped. “What in the world…?”
“They’re beaching themselves,” Jennifer said, annoyed that she had to state the obvious.
“I can see that. But why?”
“Could be a tsunami,” Stine suggested, staring at the mass of flopping, struggling bodies on the sand.
Jennifer shook her head. “No. Look at the ocean. The tide isn’t rushing back out the way it would before a tsunami. And there have been no indications of earthquakes on the monitors. If there had been, we’d have heard. This is something else.”
More staff and researchers arrived, attracted by her cries. Each of them expressed dismay as they spotted the beaching. Then, almost moving as one, they hurried across the sand, and moved among the creatures. Some of the researchers cursed. Many were overcome with stunned silence. A few wept, especially when encountering the dolphins, that chattered at them in an almost pleading tone.
“Jen!”
She turned at the voice, and saw Dr. Edward Steinhardt trudging toward her. He wore wading shoes on his feet, and his wet pant legs were rolled up to his knees. His long, graying hair was pulled back in a ponytail. His face was slate grey, and his expression was one of shocked disbelief. Jennifer ran to him.