by Michael Cole
Its snake-like tentacles curled tightly against its body, clutching any nearby rocks to help anchor itself to the sea bottom. It intended to rest for the night. There was no need for it to hunt, as its nutritional needs were met for the time being. There was no need to branch out and seek new territory, as it felt happily secluded in this otherworldly home. It entered a deep sleep, separating itself from the events of this day, allowing the memories of its accomplishment to be lost from its mind, like a drop of rain in the open ocean. Once awakened, only instinct would take over, with only a particle remaining of satisfied attainment, just enough to motivate it to rise and do it again.
Sensory receivers in its bulb-shaped eyes suddenly sent signals to its brain, bringing a halt to the intended slumber. A bizarre illumination under the water triggered automatic electrical impulses, resulting in the creature taking a defensive position. Its tentacles, along with other appendages, supported its bulk as it came out of its restful state. Sensory receptors on its thick shell detected vibrations humming through the water, as if some form of communication had been taking place. Also detected by these vibrations was movement by more than one intruder. If the creature had a real attitude like that of a human, it would be considered very angry. It had declared this entire region to be its habitat, and any creature to wander upon it was meant to be destroyed. However, instinct drove the creature to move along the water carefully, altering the coloring of its outer shell to assume the appearance of the rocks in which it traveled along. With each arm, it slowly pulled itself along the rocky forest, carefully nearing the fateful encounter with its new enemy.
********
Denning and Thompson stayed close together. Visibility was quickly shortening, even with the help of the flashlights in their hands and the spotlights from the two vessels overhead. Thompson knew this wasn’t the brightest decision she’d made in her fourteen year career. It was specifically mentioned in her training not to waste precious time and resources looking for something that couldn’t be found, or wasn’t worth finding. In this case, the missing vessel applied to her as both. She wasn’t a cold hearted woman. She understood that the loss of these two people must be affecting someone, somewhere, but the reality she recognized was the fact that they clearly were gone, and whether or not the remains of the vessel are discovered should not make any difference.
They were already down for three minutes, and Denning was considerably more than anxious to head back up to the boat. Thompson never really sympathized with his reasons for wanting to return to base, knowing that he was just looking forward to a night of poker with his friends. He was no good at the game, but he enjoyed trying his luck. He had no wife or girlfriend waiting for him, and his immediate family was all the way up in Salt Lake City, Utah. He enjoyed womanizing way too much to settle down, and the idea of women being used as personal gimmicks did not float well with Thompson. While she was not married, she didn’t go for the outrageous lifestyle of her diving partner. There was one particular individual in Maine that had her attention for a short time, and even lead to marriage. However, that only lasted seemingly five minutes when he turned out to be hanging out at strip clubs on Friday and Saturday evenings behind her back. Luckily for her, she was already being ordered to a new post in Bermuda at the time, so that made it easy for her to knock out two of his teeth and be out of the state before anyone really had any clue of what happened between them. Luckily, the divorce was quick and easy. Now she was here in Mako’s Ridge, looking for a fishing vessel, with her reliable but despicable diving partner, along with Arness. There wasn’t much for her to know about him. They first worked together when they were stationed in Bermuda, and they seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Like Denning, he took orders well, but unlike Denning, he lived a rather low-key personal life-- less playboy-like.
Denning steadily paddled his flippers, keeping pace about seven feet to the right of Thompson. With the flashlight in his left hand, he shined a light down into the rocky abyss, where it diminished into darkness in the distance. The stormy weather made the skies darker, which in turn took away what little visibility that was left under the water. Denning was not comfortable with this at all. Swimming in these conditions with nearly no visibility was not Coast Guard protocol. However, he was under Thompson’s command, and getting her pissed was not something that was easily undone. He shined his light downward and then to his left. There was nothing. There wasn’t even any fish. It was a barren wasteland underwater.
Did Steve Hogan actually expect to catch anything out here? Denning thought to himself. He shined his flashlight over to his right and continued paddling forward. The visibility was the same as before. The light shined into darkness, and then there’d be a large rock. After the light moved past that rock there’d be darkness again, and finally another massive formation. This formation was much different from the other rocks in the area, which took more of a pointed stake-like form. This one in particular was more oval, somewhat resembling the shape of a giant pancake. The light generated just enough illumination to catch the overall shape of the structure. Just before he shined the flashlight away, something else caught his eye. Something had moved. He shined the flashlight back toward the rock, but this time he couldn’t see anything else. In his mind, he tried to envision what he saw. Whatever it was, it was much thinner than the rock formations, and also it appeared flexible, like a hose. His heart seemed to jump in his chest as his mind came up with a theory for what it was. Perhaps it could be the net used by Hogan and Burke, which supposedly was hooked onto the boat that sunk. Under the water, the net could have got tangled in any bizarre form.
He exhaled; releasing several bubbles to escape to the surface, and then took another breath from his re-breather. He looked to his left to look for Thompson, but she wasn’t there. He shined his light ahead of him and realized he must have slowed his pace accidentally because she had gotten ahead of him. At this point, he didn’t care. He figured that in the worst case scenario, if they got separated, they’d just swim to the surface where’d they’d meet back at the Arthur Bishop. She’d be pissed that they got separated, but Denning was aware that he always got on her nerves anyway. He turned and swam toward the strange formation. With each kick, the massive structure began to take more shape. Whatever coloring he could make out was the same as the rest of the rocks. He also was surprised at how huge this rock was. It was probably sixty feet in diameter, and its surface was different than the other rock formations. Its surface appeared to be…spiny.
********
It lay close to the bottom of the seabed and remained stationary, allowing itself to blend in to its environment. It had found a suitable place to observe the life forms that had awoken it. One intruder dared approach. It was tiny in comparison. The bizarre illumination increased as the enemy drew near, flaring the receptors in its eyes, which had adjusted to the dark space-like environment. The intruder continued to move in and flashed its blinding offensive behavior. It positioned its legs for its ambush strategy and coiled its tentacles like springs. It didn’t desire to feed: It desired to kill.
********
Denning neared closer. He was barely twenty yards over the rock by now. Swimming made it harder to get a good look at the object, especially with the darkening water. Now that he found a decent position to observe, he shined his light around the rock formation for the moving object that caught his eye a few moments earlier. He panned it around, but there was no sign of the vessel. He then illuminated the front of the large rock. The front of the massive oval object caught his attention. It wasn’t like any rock structure he’d seen. Separated by a number of yards were two huge round formations, like joints, that each connected the main body to smaller, narrower formations that took a curled position, tucked into the front of the rock. He then focused his light in-between the two ‘joints’. There were two small objects, each the size of a soccer ball attached to the rock by what appeared to be a pair of antenna. Directly below that was another bizarre f
eature, which Denning’s mind could only compare to the alien mandibles in the movie Predator. In the center of these large objects was a large bony formation, which resembled the beak of an eagle. Under his mask, Denning could begin to feel himself sweat…as the beak opened and closed, and the large rock body began to shift.
Just as he was about to turn to swim away, his eyes took notice of one more thing to the side of the object. A moment passed before he realized that that ‘one more thing’ was actually four more things, each coiled like springs and pointed at him. As quickly as he had taken notice of them, they uncoiled and tore through the water at him, flailing like the many heads of an angry hydra. Denning opened his mouth to shriek, but his voice was muffled by the sound of dozens of air bubbles escaping his lungs into the water. He paddled his arms and kicked his legs to bring himself upward, but the terrifying snake-like arms already encircled him. The next thing he knew, there was a pressure along his waist and abdomen, as one of the huge arms wrapped itself around him like an anaconda. With the flashlight still in hand, he flailed his arms in panic, creating a vast display of light flashes that began to resemble the effects of a flying saucer. The pressure increased, cracking the bottom of Denning’s ribcage. After that came a shooting pain from all sides, as something sharp was piercing into him. The arm pulled him downward toward the large mass, which seemed to have moved, and strangely appeared to be looking at him through those large round…eyes. The objects connected to it by use of those ‘joints’ also began to move and take shape, like huge arms. The end of each arm was a jointed, toothy appendage that opened and closed like pincers, like that of a scorpion…
Or a crab.
The pincers opened and closed repeatedly, as if the ungodly life form was consciously preparing for an attack. And it was. Muffled by the water, Denning released a dull scream which didn’t last for long, as the pincers and tentacles tore his body apart like a paper shredder. There was no effort to it. The tentacles pulled his legs from his abdomen, popping them off at the joints, while the pincers repeatedly chopped up his torso like scissors.
********
Lieutenant Thompson had already turned around when she had realized that her diving partner was nowhere to be seen. In her mind she cursed him for disobeying her rules, which required divers to stick with their partners. She could see his light in the distance, and for a while it appeared that he was examining something in particular. For a few minutes as she neared him, Denning’s light maintained the same position, moving only as he moved. She knew how little Denning cared for this assignment to begin with, much less the extra minutes they were putting into the dive, so the fact that he appeared to be investigating something intrigued her. From her distance at ninety feet, she could only see a massive rocky structure ahead of him.
Perhaps he found the wreck? She thought to herself. As she got closer, something suddenly changed. The stream of light had gone into a spasm, spinning in every direction possible. Adrenaline fueled her body and she kicked her feet up and down to gain speed. After closing an additional ten yards, she was less than fifty feet away. She slowed to a stop when the light ended its frantic display. Something wasn’t right. The light was still moving in circular motions, but much slower, and it appeared to be sinking. Thinking Denning may have dropped it, Thompson shined her own flashlight into the location where Denning was just moments ago. There was nobody there, however there was something else that was strange. She saw that the water where she illuminated was full of a cloudy substance that she could not identify. It was a dark color, but not black like dirt or sludge. She couldn’t be certain, but it almost appeared red. In the mist of the cloudy substance was a large quantity of debris. She slowly paddled forward to get a closer look. There was no wood in this debris. Rather, it appeared to be made up of shredded clothing material. She held her light on the mass array of floating substance. As her eyes examined the scene, another object passed by her sights. It was an oxygen tank, the same one Denning was using. Immediately passing by her view was another piece of debris, one of which Thompson could not immediately identify. But after noticing the five jointed digits, as well as the tissue dangling from a round stub, reality struck that it was a hand severed at the wrist. Air bubbles exploded around her mouth piece as she shrieked at the sight.
Her mind had barely any time to comprehend what she had just seen as another thing caught her eye. She noticed movement within the cloud of blood and guts. There was something moving about within them. Multiple something’s. They were long and moved like monstrous snakes rising vertically from the bottom of the seabed. Thompson’s eyes traced along these long organisms, looking down to their roots of origin: that strange rock formation. It had arms. It had eyes. It moved. It moved towards her. She released another muffled shriek of terror and bolted for the surface.
********
“They should’ve been back by now,” Deputy Drake said. He was still leaning on the railing the stern of his vessel, this time with no coffee. The wind was picking up, and the sky was officially black. Rain was showering down and pounding on his black raincoat. “Do you think they may have found the wreck?” he asked Arness, who was also beginning to look worried.
“If they did, they’d immediately notify us,” he said. “She wouldn’t waste her time admiring the scenery.” A crack of thunder echoed throughout the night sky. Arness looked at his watch. It had been ten minutes since they went back under. Thompson was always on schedule. This wasn’t like her to be late. The bad weather wasn’t helping Arness’ anxiety which was steadily getting worse. He cursed himself for not voicing the opinion that they should just dock in East Port, spend the night in Mako’s Center, and just try again in the morning. Finally, after numerous long moments, his eyes caught sight of light from a flashlight in the distance. It was waving back and forth madly, as if to get their attention. “There it is!” He pointed out to it.
“I see it,” Drake said. There was a brief pause, while both men recognized Thompson’s voice in the distance, screaming out to them. They couldn’t yet make out any words, but immediately knew it was urgent. Without saying a word to each other, they both withdrew to their cabins and electronically pulled up their anchors. Free of the weight that bolted their vessels from the sea floor, both men propelled their boats forward. For communication, each of them clicked their radios. “Could you hear what she was saying?” Drake asked through.
“Negative,” Arness responded through radio traffic. “I only see Thompson. No sign of Denning.” Within twenty seconds, the boats pulled up near Thompson, who quickly made her way to the nearest one. She was still yelling frantically, almost in a panic. Both Arness and Drake hurried out onto their decks, surprised to see Thompson grabbing the ladder of the Police Vessel, which was nearest to her. Without the distance between them, her panicked screams finally took the form of words:
“THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE WATER!”
She launched herself onto the deck. She had already thrown off her other gear while waiting for the vessels to approach-- she didn’t want any extra weight slowing her down.
“Let’s get out of here!” She ordered. “Turn the boats around and head for Port!”
“Lieutenant!” Arness yelled from the Arthur Bishop. “Where the hell is Denning?”
“Denning’s dead!” Thompson shouted back. Both Arness and Drake appeared to freeze in position. All at once, they hysterically responded back:
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“What do you mean he’s dead?”
“What the fuck happened down there?”
Thompson’s heart pounded harder, and her temper flared under the tremendous pressure and fright. “God damn it, something killed him. I don’t know what it is, but it’s fucking huge! We need to get out of here now!”
“What the hell are you talking about, Lieut--” Drake’s question was silenced with a gasp as he braced himself against the railing after the vessel reared up a few feet. Something had made an impact on the
bottom. Whatever it was, it was big. “Holy mother of God!” he exclaimed as he rushed for the cabin. Once inside, he wasted no time pushing the motor to its max, speeding the boat forward and away. Once the vessel was in motion, Drake looked behind him to make sure the Arthur Bishop was leaving the scene. And it was, propelling away with intense speed. Maintaining their velocity, both vessels began speeding their way to East Port.
CHAPTER
7
“Did you sleep well, sir?” Napier remarked as he watched Wayne pull into the driveway, late again as usual. He stood on board the upper deck of the Catcher with his arms crossed while he leaned against the railing. There was a bit of a breeze in the air left over by the storm that passed over during the previous night, which also caused a drop in the morning temperature. Napier compensated by wearing his old grey sweater. He stood and waited as Wayne took his sweet time walking towards the vessel. He tapped his left hand against his elbow repeatedly, as if this would somehow quench the anxiety he was experiencing. He had spent the early morning looking over his bills, and he barely had enough money in his account to make his truck payment. The small catch made during the past Saturday certainly did not help the matter. It was July, and in a month Jane would be going back to school for her senior year, which would mean she would be in need of school supplies. He still needed a winch for the Catcher to reel in the nets, but unfortunately that would have to wait until his other priorities were taken care of. Now he was plenty anxious to see the results in his nets this morning. Mondays were usually good days because they always had an extra day, Sunday, to bring in some catch. And Napier needed a good day. His savings account only held so much money.
