Operation Behemoth

Operation Behemoth

Samara Fuerte

04/23/2026

As the legendary Chinese curse puts it, we are to live in interesting times. They told us they couldn’t predict it, but we all saw. Still, we were too busy with our own issues to care when the streets began to flood. I can't give you an exact date when it started; over time, it just became the norm to wade through the murky, grey water that crept up to our ankles. The water kept rising, food became scarce, and eventually, we were all forced to leave. Since Christ gave this peculiar burden to my generation. Was this the first of the Ten Plagues? I sat in church, surrounded by many others, waiting for the ever-growing puddles at our feet to transform into blood.

I’m not a philosopher. I’m a 55-year-old White man from Miami, expecting to retire as a boat tour guide in South Beach. Life was comfortable then, as I listened to tourists tell me how lucky I was to live in the city where people went to party. I never noticed until those nights in the cabin.

Because of my growing health issues, I didn’t reject the offer when I later settled in Orlando after the Rise to become a Marine Communications Coordinator. Even though this job meant going farther out into the newly founded coast of Florida, we never ventured back to my hometown. Entering the wetland I used to call my home seemed meaningless, and my feelings stayed certain on that, even after being assigned to Operation Behemoth.

All they told us was to check for any life there. No one prepared us for what we would have seen. All they told me was that we would know it once we saw it.

Well, we saw it.

I’ve experienced only one of the Ten Plagues, and I won’t experience the second, because we are all doomed.

We will meet Him again.

But I will meet Him before you all.

After all, I was the ferryman who led everyone through Hell.

---

I tried to make the best of the situation, I really did. But I’ve been assigned to plenty of these expositions, so I didn’t exactly care to build rapport for an operation that’ll only last a week, at most.

I usually get assigned to the same people, too. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) finds it easier to know everyone’s strengths before we set sail. Because it is easier. No need for forced introductions or faking curiosity about why you applied to work at the DEP. We all did it for the pay; no need to lie to me.

I didn’t recognize anyone in the team except for Marcus.

He gets the job done as an engineer. Strong and tall, too, so he held his own weight and more. Always eager to help us ‘oldheads.’

I was used to being called Gringo. When my ginger hair was still visible, it made sense, but now it's only patchworked in with my white hairs; now I'm just 'oldhead.'

There was an older woman on our team, but Marcus never called her an oldhead. Only “Ma’am " to whom I found out to be called Lucia. He would always use everyone's names around me to have me remember who they were, as I never introduced myself other than as Captain.

“Y’know, they were talking about movies before The Rise,” Marcus told me on our third day on the boat, doing his daily check on the boat mechanics. “Maybe you can mention that one movie. The one when they were at War in Germany?”

“That's all war movies.”

“No. The main guy is German, and they actually go to war.”

“You gotta tell me more for me to remember.”

He rolled his eyes, looking away from the radio in front of him, “They banned the movie. In German. That's why you wanted to show me.”

“All Quiet on the Western-”

“-Western Front! Yes! I knew you remembered.” Nodding as he turned back to the machine, back to doing his job. “Well, you can talk about it with them at dinner. The youngin want to know about that time.”

“She’s your age.”

“Okay, but I’m a mature twenty-seven. I know all about history from you.” Using the screwdriver to point at me at every drawn-out word.

“Stop doing that.”

He sighed, hard. His shoulders slumping as he turned to look over at me fully for the first time this entire conversation, “All I'm saying is, this operation might take a while. Be friendly with them, they are all kinda weary of you.” His voice was soft, speaking to me as if I were being dropped off at daycare for the first time.

“I met people like them in the past. Seen all those personalities throughout my life.” immediately shrugged off his suggestion.

“You could still give everyone a chance instead of being all bitter about nothin.”

While he wasn’t wrong, I had always preferred to keep to myself. It's easy. Clocking in for work, and the only thoughts in my head are the tasks for the day. I don't have the obligation to explain that to him, even if Marcus’s disappointed stare told me otherwise.

It took about four more hours to finally get to Miami. Back when I used to live here, you wouldn’t call this part Miami to actual residents. This is just the Redlands, and from what I recall, it was one of the first areas to feel the effects of rising sea levels.

Steering the boat was getting more difficult as we moved farther toward the coordinates they gave us. It was already dark out; using the boat's lights to make out what was out there was pointless. The water was mixed with large chunks of mud, and metal parts were scattered around. The metal pieces can pierce the boat, making it hazardous to keep moving through. The Cuban informed us that, as if I couldn’t tell, I was driving the damn boat.

Marcus reminded me that her name was Yanelis and her job is to be aware of any safety issues we could encounter. The DEP made an interesting pick, choosing her among all the other safety officers I’ve ridden with.

She reasoned that if there were people here, they would most likely be frightened by our arrival, and we could clearly see who needed help in daylight. That I did agree. I wouldn’t want people aboarding the boat so late, we wouldn’t be able to see how large a group we would be bringing back. I would need to inform through the radio if we needed more boats. And nobody comes when it's this late.

I tried sleeping. It was futile as I twisted and turned in the middle of the night. I find the sounds of the ocean to be soothing, but now that we were near land, all you could hear was the sound of guttural bellows, mixed with hissing.

I could tell I wasn’t the only one awake; all of us turning in our cramped bunk beds had the sound follow our changing positions of sleep. The bellows were in tune with the water's movements until a large roar was followed by blood-curdling screaming.

Then the tipping of the boat.

I got up as fast as I could, rushing over to open the boat trapdoor to get to the deck. My plan was to steer the boat back into balance, and I saw the cause for all the screaming.

Marcus, who was holding onto Yanelis's back while she held onto her hand, whatever remained of it, and a large crocodile that was leaning onto the side of the boat, a death grip on her hand. It was snarling, its sharp teeth on display for all of us with eyes that were oddly human, staring at us as if we were to blame for all this.

I couldn’t focus on its eyes following my back as I held onto the wheel of the boat, trying to turn to the left as fast as I could, hoping the movement would throw the crocodile back into the water.

All this made it do was fasten its hold on her skin, as it did what I hoped it wouldn’t have since its eyes locked onto me.

It started rolling its entire body in a violent, fast maneuver as its goal moved away from her hand, but to rip her entire arm out instead. The first roll seemed to work just fine as I heard a loud, wet pop.

From my spot on the boat, I could see Marcus fall onto the wooden deck, Yanelis off to the side with him, curled up in a ball, screaming. Her vocal cords were straining under the force of her own voice.

The crocodile, finally getting what it wanted, peeled its body off the side of the boat back to the water.

While Lucia tried her best to fix the damage done to Yanelis' arm, she wasn’t a magician. Not much you can do but bandage whatever was left of her side and try muffling her screaming so that beast doesn't come back for round two.

After I reported through the radio what had happened, I demanded that Marcus explain what he was doing out there with Yanelis. Apparently, her seasickness was coming back, but she had used all the patches Lucia had given her. She had hoped Marcus could help her find some, and the crocodile must have heard them and tried to jump over and attacked her in the process.

Lucia was demanding that we turn back, but the DEP had not responded, and we weren't authorized to return without their approval. And even if they did approve, they would need to send over boats to deliver more fuel so we could head back to Orlando, since turning the boat to throw off the crocodile had dented the fuel tank.

Yanelis was doing as well as you would expect. She was already pale, but now she looked as grey as the water. Her eyes were swollen from the non-stop crying, and her bandaged arm was unmoved from the spot I saw last night. She was delirious but encouraged us to go explore, saying that if people had been out there for years with that thing, they needed all of our attention. Lucia offered to stay on the boat, but we convinced her to come with us since she would need her help if that crocodile came back.

The three of us left the boat for the first time since we began this trip.

Now that it was daytime, we could see our surroundings very easily. There were small patches of land with large pools of water surrounding them. Our boat was basically parked in the middle of this uneven swamp.

Learning our lesson from the night before, Marcus led the way, carrying a shotgun with him, holding it awkwardly above the water as we explored.

Hours must have passed, and we had found nothing. It was just constant stomping through water that made me feel 50 pounds heavier. I almost cheered when we came across an abandoned house on an elevated lot, which was just a pile of mud and wet wood.

You could smell the house before even going in. It had a distinct earthy must. Unlike the air outside, it was like a gas chamber filled with nothing but wet rot. The walls inside seemed to be rebuilt over and over again, patchwork throughout.

We all looked over different sections of the house. While decaying every second that passed, it seemed to have lasted through plenty. I bent down, trying to get a closer look at a pile of trash. I could feel my legs falling asleep. I tried looking through fast, pushing pieces of metal and wood.

Underneath it all, I had found three large chunks of wood. The cravings were so deep, I was surprised it didn’t go through the whole plank. Each had a large hole on the top, as if they had been hanged previously. It took some time to decipher, but I finally figured it out.

“1. Don’t look at it.”

“2. Don’t speak to it.”

“3. Don’t go in the water.”

“I don’t think it's safe to touch that.” Marcus pointed out as he stood behind me.

“It don’t got no mold,” I said in a rushed tone. My back was still turned to him as I hovered over the writings.

“We don’t need you also getting hurt, too.” Letting out a dry laugh as he bent down beside me. His face fell as soon as he looked at Lucia to see her serious expression staring right back at him.

“Are you sure? Everything here has mold.” She declared, holding her shirt to her nose as she walked over to us to see what we were reading, since we gave no response.

“Maybe it's a poem?” Marcus broke the silence while Lucia and I shook our heads, hard.

“Nah, these people knew something.”

“Knew what? It doesn’t even say what not to look or speak to.” Lucia’s hand extended toward the direction of the signs. “And there's no way they never went in the water. This place is flooded.”

“Why do you think nobody is here?” I countered, my eyes leaving the wood now to stare up at her.

“Maybe they were all losing it.” She whispered back to me in a mocking tone, turning away from me and towards the doorless entrance we entered through. “We found nothing. And Yanelis has been alone in the boat for hours.”

I didn’t know what ‘it’ was, but people had lived here for years and had somehow survived here long enough to make rules about something out here. I had a gut instinct to listen; they knew better than we outsiders.

I didn't want to get in the water. But I had no other choice. The water felt much colder now. I had gotten over the initial stabbing pains that shot through my legs from each step, but my body was trying to escape the water.

Lucia would've swum back to the boat if it meant helping Yanelis. She was a goner in my eyes; we all saw her arm after being mauled. Strings of her muscles and tendons swung as she clung to whatever was left. Marcus and I had to clean it up that same night. Both of us tense, looking over our shoulders, worried it’ll smell the blood of its unfinished job.

“Why make signs?” Marcus had blurted out from behind us, bringing me out of my daze as we kept stomping through the water, the sun now setting. I was running on no sleep and was beyond the point of deciphering any more codes today.

“I mean, you only make rules like that and hang them up for a whole community, right? Meaning someone must’ve broken them.” I could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

No one spoke after that.

When we returned to the boat, surprisingly, Yanelis was still alive. She smiled at our return, even at the mention of no one living here.

I reported back to the DEP that we had found nothing, how Yanelis was still recovering, and how it was time to head back.

While it was normal not to hear a response as you spoke, I would usually find one a couple of hours later, at the latest. I hadn’t seen any acknowledgment of anything from the night before.

“Marcus!” He hadn’t done his daily check on the engine or our radio yet.

“Yeah?” His voice, muffled, sounded far, most likely from the cabin.

“Can you check-”

“No need to scream.”

My train of thought was lost as he interrupted me. He needed to stop doing that.

“Okay. Can you check the radio? Ion think it's working.”

“Can you leave my supplies out there?”

I begrudgingly walked away from the radio over to a large glove box, seeing the very tool kit Marcus brought to every trip we’ve been on. He sounded pretty tired, his normally upbeat voice dull, but we were all exhausted, so I could at least do him this one. I placed the red box down with a loud grunt by the radio.

Hours had passed since that interaction, and I was helping Lucia whenever I could. While I thought her lack of trust in the people who used to live in the swamp was extreme, she was a skeptic, and I couldn’t push any further on the signs we saw in front of Yanelis.

Younger me wouldn’t have cared, though. I would've pushed on her stance, ask if she didn’t feel that presence outside that house like I did, and that's why she was in such a rush to leave.

I had only gotten back to religion because of The Rise. Growing up with Irish Catholic traditions made it difficult to detach from the little things even as an adult. My Hispanic friends were the only ones who knew how culture was so intertwined with religion; there isn’t a way to experience one without the other.

I’d tried to detach from that lifestyle, but it always comes back. I had an emptiness I never felt before. It's hard to explain to a nonbeliever that I've lived for something beyond myself since childhood.

My moping was disturbed by rustling, and my mind immediately went back to the previous night. I shot up from bed.

Marcus was moving around the cabin in heavy steps. He pulled at bedsheets, medical supplies, and cans of food as he searched around.

“Where is the tool kit?” He said to no one in particular. “It's not in the glove box,” he would randomly pull at his buzzed hair, as if it would trigger a nerve in his brain to remember whatever he had lost.

I relaxed into the bed more now, “I left it by the radio.”

“What?” His head snapped in my direction.

“It's by the radio.”

He let out a heavy sigh, “No, it's not. I would’ve seen it.” He was stepping closer to me as he spoke, “Why move my shit? You know I always get it myself.”

I stare back at him, not used to this anger from him. “You asked me to put it there,” when he stood silent, I kept talking, “When I told you to check the Radio, you asked me to put it there.”

“You’re joking, right?” He just kept staring at me, confused and his mouth agape, words eluded him, “When have I ever asked you to do that? Are you senile?”

His voice was growing louder, and now both Lucia and Yanelis were looking in our direction. Lucia stood up and tried to put herself between us. “Okay, I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding.”

“No, I understand what's happening.” Shaking his head to Lucia, “The radio is broken, I can’t fix it because my tool kit is lost.” he turned away from her to look back at me, “How fucking stupid are you?”

None of us could even respond as we heard that same hissing again.

We all went silent. Yanelis was shaking, the most movement I had seen from her all day. Lucia rushed toward her, covering her mouth in case she started screaming.

What we didn’t expect to hear was gargling.

We knew it was a gargle because it was trying to talk. It would switch to this deep, uneven style of speech, if you can even call it that. It could only be described as someone trying to mimic English after hearing it spoken once, gasping between words while clicking their tongue against their mouth.

We weren’t sure where it was coming from since it was so loud. It sounded like the whole cabin was filled with sound before, all at once, the symphony of gasps, hisses, and gargling was all we heard before it suddenly stopped.

Then there was a knocking at the Cabin trapdoor.

None of us bothered to move. Its knocks were oddly soft compared to the sounds we had just heard. Marcus looked at us, motioning to open the trapdoor, but Lucia shook her head in disapproval, her face stern enough to understand through the silence.

So, we didn’t move, but the knocking didn’t stop, only keeping the same pace before stopping momentarily.

“Oh, I can’t find it.”

While still being muffled, it was undeniably Yanelis’s voice. Lucia covered her mouth with both of her hands now. With how sudden and forceful she was, I couldn’t tell if Yanelis was shaking at her touch or at hearing her own words spoken back to her.

“Maybe in the cockpit.” Now, Marcus voice. Then, heavy marching above us, randomly stomping from the steering wheel to the bow. Our eyes followed each stomp above our heads, so heavy and forceful that I thought the ceiling would cave in.

I was sitting up on my bed, my back pressed against the wall as I flinched hard at Marcus making his way toward the shotgun. He wasn’t being all that careful getting it, the stomping from above was loud enough to make him cocking the gun right beside me, silent.

The erratic stomping suddenly became a straight line from the back of thr boat to above Marcus. His gun followed the sound as fast as he could before it spoke again.

“I don’t think it's safe to touch that.”

Marcus was shaking now; so were all of us. I could see his grip loosen at the mocking tone. It was almost perfect, but all humans talk with a cadence; whatever was speaking to us just flat. There wasn’t a flow to follow; it was just reading a script back at us.

“This place is flooded.” That same phrase was repeated for the rest of the night, with the knocking continuing periodically.

When the morning came, the knocking had stopped, but none knew how to address its absence. I don’t think any of us actually slept. How could when we now know something was out there watching us for the past two days?

None of us expected Yanelis to be dead either. When Lucia had tried muffling her screams, she ended up suffocating her instead. Marcus and I didn’t blame her; if she hadn’t, she might have agitated whatever was out there again, as it seemed to have super hearing to hear Marcus grab the gun.

Despite our reassuring comments, we could tell she still felt guilty about the death and focused on the thing that was bothering us instead.

She pointed out that whatever was out only bothered us at night, so the daytime seemed to be safe enough for us since it didn’t attack us yesterday, despite following us around. She seemed more determined than the night before. With that in mind, Marcus suggested we return to the swamp to retrieve the supplies that had been taken from us. There wasn’t much else we could do; the three of us couldn’t stay another night in the boat.

So we went back out.

The swamp felt different now. Same water, same weight dragging at our legs, but now every step felt watched. It was confirmed now that the thing was out there, inspecting our every move.

Marcus didn’t speak at all this time. Neither of us had addressed the fight we had had the night before. Lucia must have felt the awkwardness, too. We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to.

We didn’t follow the same path we took yesterday; we went further east instead. We ended up finding a hut instead. Smaller than the house, lower too, like it had been sinking into the mud for years. The wood was dark, nearly black in places, soaked through with rot.

The water got deeper as we approached, pressing cold against my stomach. I hated every second of it. Don’t go in the water. The words echoed in my head, louder now, but we kept moving.

The smell always came first. Worse than the house. Like meat left out too long in the heat.

Marcus stepped inside first. I followed.

I turned to see Lucia, not stepping any closer to the hut. She was still shaken by Yanelis’s death as the smell was eerily similar to her body; we all could smell it anytime she tried peeling her bandages open. Marcus and I didn’t push her to come in.

The hut wasn’t destroyed in the way the abandoned house was. Piles of ripped clothing, strands of ginger hair scattered around. I couldn’t point it out to Marcus as he was digging through the trash to find his toolbox, now blackened from the dirt beneath it.

“Let’s just go back,” he said, his eyes softening as he turned to me. We both had some sort of relief after yesterday. I didn’t hesitate to follow him out.

The walk back was shorter than yesterday's, maybe because we were all eager to get out. Marcus led the way as always, and I was close behind him. He kept making jokes to lighten the mood, I just gave hums throughout as I still uneasy. I would relax when we are out of her.

Lucia had the right idea by not responding at all. She was trailing far behind us, though. I knew the water was tough to get through, but she didn’t seem to have a problem heading over. She just kept swaying, as if all her effort was going into performing a field sobriety test and was failing miserably.

“Are you okay?” I had stopped walking and turned to look at her fully, and she stopped when I did.

Marcus gave a light shove at my shoulder, “Cmon, that’s even low for you.” he shook his head before leaning over and whispering, “You know she has Parkinsons.”

When he said, I suddenly remembered. While I thought it was weird that they hired a doctor with Parkinson's, she was good at her job before getting diagnosed. This would be her last major job; she gave us all this long story about it, running her in the family and avoiding getting diagnosed because of it. I turned over to apologize, and I could tell Marcus was going to ask if she needed help through the water.

Lucia’s posture was wrong. She bent over, her arms hung too loosely, and she shook as she started convulsing. That's the closest thing it could be; her chest shook, and her mouth agape, but no noise came out despite how big her mouth was getting.

The water had reached our waists, and everything underneath was submerged. She folded into the water way too easily. We then heard the same gargling sound from the night before as brown and grey bubbles formed above her head. All we could see was her back now, as her head was fully submerged. Her shirt was falling off her skin, not that it ripped, but as if her clothes were her skin and had just come off.

You could see her skin harden. She shivered as a pattern akin to cracked mud appeared on her back, and she began morphing, quickly becoming inhuman. It looked like those poorly done CGI videos they used to show in school about human evolution.

I could hear Marcus letting out gibberish as his mind couldn’t catch up to what we were seeing. It had made me aware that the thing in front of us was no longer Lucia, but the same crocodile.

Marcus immediately went to shooting, his bullets flying everywhere as he was running through the water, as it swam toward us. I was already accepting my fate; no one can outrun a crocodile, especially not this one that was now 20 feet and swollen in front of us.

He managed to shoot it in the eye, and it let out loud hisses, then human screams. We just kept running.

We managed to get on the boat. Marcus got to work immediately, trying to fix the radio, hands shaking but moving anyway. I was already steering away; we wouldn’t have fuel to head back, but we would have enough to get away from that creature.

We could feel something large circling beneath the boat, its body shaking the boat as we tried keeping our balance.

Metal groaning, water splashing onto the deck. I kept pushing on the throttle. The engine screamed, then caught. The boat lurched forward.

The crocodile followed, faster than it should have been, slamming into us again and again. Marcus fired twice. It didn’t slow.

Then, mid-lunge, its body twisted. Limbs bending the wrong way, skin shifting, stretching into something else. I didn’t watch long enough to understand. I didn’t want to.

We had run out of fuel. Marcus slumped against the wall, blood soaking through his shirt. I hadn’t even noticed when he got hurt.

I looked at my own hands. Blood there too. Mine. I didn’t remember that either.

It just kept hitting the boat, a mix of all our voices yelling at the two of us.

We don’t have much time left, but our bodies are persistent in living. But all I could think about was memories of everyone on the boat, the happiness I felt when I was speaking with Lucia and Yanelis. I knew it wasn’t real; whatever was there had some trance on us. But I can’t deny the warmth I felt there. I can repeat conversations we had, word for word. How can you tell me that was all fake when it extends beyond the trip to hanging out late at night with them? Even when Marcus shot the creature, it stared at us with such love.

I didn’t have any other memories to think about, when ‘your life flashes before your eyes’, all I had was that tenderness I never experienced anywhere else and had only wished for more of.