From the Deep Read Online Free Page B

glorify. However, in the close community of marine biology, the stranding’s had certainly raised a few eyebrows, and now one had happened on her doorstep.
    Clara had a slim, athletic body, and bronzed, freckle dashed skin from a career spent mostly outdoors. Her eyes were green and her hair a stunning shade of red, which even tied and hidden under her baseball cap still stood out in the blazing Australian sun.
    “How long until that bloody crane gets here?” she snapped.
    “It’s inbound. Within the hour I expect.” Dexter replied, glancing at the tide that was lapping around the whale’s underbelly.
    He picked up the hose as Clara worked on digging a channel around the animal to help return it to the ocean. A crowd of onlookers had gathered and were watching intently.
    “We can’t wait much longer,” she said, glancing at the weakened animal. “We need to try to do this by hand.”
    “I thought you said that was a last resort?”
    “This is the last resort. Get some of those rubberneckers to help us.”
    Thirty minutes later, the group managed to drag the whale back into the ocean. They whooped and cheered as they watched the animal swim away. Clara stood, hands on hips, breathing heavily from the exertion.
    “Think she’ll be okay?” Dexter asked as he stood beside her.
    “I hope so. She seems lively enough.”
    The pair started to walk back up the beach, when they heard the commotion behind them.
    The whale they had rescued had re-beached itself, only this time it wasn’t alone. Clara and Dexter watched as dozens of whales, dolphins, and even sharks launched themselves on the beach, thrashing as they tried to distance themselves as far as they could from the water.
    “Jesus…” Dexter said as he watched wave after wave of fish lurch out of the water.
    Clara didn’t reply. Instead, she stared out beyond the beach full of stranded marine life, to the calm blue ocean beyond.
    “What the hell is spooking you all?” she muttered to herself under her breath.

 
    CHAPTER 6
     
     
    Kodiak town,
    Kodiak Island,
    Alaska.
     
     
    Lying off the southern coast of Alaska, Kodiak Island is the second largest of its kind in the entire United States. Mountainous and heavily forested in the northern and eastern regions, yet treeless in the south, the island is pocked with numerous natural bays, which are used by the local fishermen to shelter their vessels when the nearby Bering Sea unleashed one of its frequent violent storms. The island also boasted a rich wildlife reserve, and was populated by a community who almost exclusively work in or around the thriving fishing industry.
    Because of its location within the sub polar oceanic climate zone, Kodiak’s 6,000 residents are subjected to long, cold winters that test even the hardiest of the fishermen who make up a vast bulk of the local populous.
    Valerie Harris looked out of the window of her house across the bay, and clutched the photograph of her late husband a little tighter. Although death itself wasn’t a surprise out on the water, the fact that the Harris family were so well known, and had been for generations, made the local interest aspect worthy of the newspapers paying particular attention to the story. Valerie looked at her children as they ate breakfast, Tyler who was three, and Tess who had just turned five, would never know their father. Never get to find out what a wonderfully warm, kind man he was, and for that, she was angry. She closed her eyes, and rested her head on the cool glass of the window, feeling guilty about the dark thoughts that had drifted back into her mind.
    She had bought a bottle of vodka, and set aside a stockpile of pills. Twice now, she had gone as far as opening the bottles, but hadn’t found the strength to go through with it, mostly because of the love she had for her children. The voice in her head that had given her the idea to end it all in the first place, was making ever more convincing arguments that they would be