The Island of the Skull

by Matthew John Costello

  Yeah—as if that ever happened.

  The few times Sam got close to a shark, no matter what size, it made a beeline in the other direction. And the so-called rays? That was the funniest.

  In the pulp rags, the rays had some deadly “stinging” power. In truth they were gentle creatures with weird sucking mouthparts and not a real stinger in sight.

  The air hose kept playing out.

  The diver below, a kid named Tommy, was working the training wreck planted by the Navy, a rusty hulk that was used for all sorts of exercises. The kid was doing a “drop-in”…finding an access point to the interior of the ship, and then penetrating the wreck.

  Just some practice.

  “Yeah, so why the hell do they keep training all these kids, huh?” DiGiacomo asked.

  His questions were never-ending.

  Sam shook his head.

  “Train them for what? The high-paying business of professional diving? Yeah. Gimme a break. We’ll be lucky if we get a job selling chestnuts on Lombard Street.” The lieutenant laughed, and jabbed a finger at Sam. “You just stay off my corner.”

  Sam looked at him. DiGiacomo’s fear was transparent.

  These were not good days to be cashiered out of a government job.

  And what were Sam’s prospects? He tried not to think too much about that. Unlike a lot of gobs, he had saved a decent nest egg. But how long would that last? What really were the opportunities in commercial diving? Did any of those opportunities still exist?

  A lot of questions there.

  A gull hovered over their barge, cawing at the generator pumping air. DiGiacomo had his hand around a tug line—the heavy rope used to signal that a diver was coming up.

  The air hose stopped running out.

  The line just…stopped, as it slipped into the water.

  Sam turned to DiGiacomo. “Give the line a pull and see if everything’s all right.”

  DiGiacomo gave the line a tug—and it flew back loose, sending him reeling to the floor of the barge.

  “Christ, it broke.”

  Sam gave the air hose a tug now. Taut, and the air compressor was still chugging so that the kid below, Tommy Hautala, had to be breathing okay, the valve venting.

  “Shit,” Sam said, standing up, peering into the water as if it would tell him what was wrong.

  “Something’s up, Sam. Something’s going on down there.”

  Right, Sam thought. Something’s going on and we don’t have a clue what it is.

  “I gotta go down,” Sam said.

  “Damn. Maybe you should give him a bit more time.”

  Sam turned to DiGiacomo, knowing what he was thinking. They both had just a few days until they were done. It was not a time to take any risks, any chances. Maybe they could wait, give the kid some time to figure out his problem.

  Sure. They could wait. But if the kid was in trouble, they might be bringing up a corpse.

  Not the way Sam wanted to end his Navy service.

  He ran over to a dive suit hanging on a pole.

  “Jeezus, Sam? What the hell you doin’?”

  “I’m suiting up. Give me a hand.”

  “But by the time you get down there, the kid—”

  Sam reached out and grabbed DiGiacomo’s wrists. Not the time for him to be spouting off. “Just help me suit up, okay?”

  DiGiacomo nodded.

  And though Sam went as fast as possible, slipping into the bulky dive outfit, the heavy metal boots, it still took minutes, precious minutes that if Tommy was in real trouble could make Sam too late.

  Finally DiGiacomo went and grabbed the helmet and hooked it to a second air hose. The compressor would now feed two lifelines below.

  “All set, Sam?”

  Sam nodded, and DiGiacomo put the helmet over Sam’s head, pressing it tight, then twisting it so the large glass porthole of the helmet faced forward.

  “Hurry up, DiGiacomo.”

  “I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying!”

  DiGiacomo took a wrench and tightened the bolts around the helmet. Then he tapped the top of the helmet.

  “All set, Sam?”

  Sam nodded. The suit was unbearably heavy on the surface. The lead shoes made walking almost impossible, and the helmet made it hard to keep his head erect. The only solution was getting into the water as fast as possible.

  Sam stepped to an opening in the port side of the barge. He turned back to make sure that his partner was ready to play out the air hose.

  Most dives got screwed up in those first few seconds of hitting the water, the hose tangling as the diver fell like a deadweight to the bottom.

  Sam took a giant step into the water, the surface of San Francisco Bay glistening in the midday sun.

  And he fell…

  The bottom lay at only about sixty feet deep here. Not much of a dive. But the visibility, always bad, made the harbor one of Sam’s least favorite places to be underwater. Get out into the Pacific, and there the water quickly cleared to thirty, forty…even fifty feet visibility.

  Here, he could see five, ten feet if he was lucky.

  And as soon as he hit the silty bottom, he knew this wasn’t one of the bay’s better days.

  The visibility might even be less than five feet. Finding the wreck, and then finding the kid, wasn’t going to be easy.

  Sam began walking in the direction of the wreck, leading with his head, tilting forward to allow for movement on the bottom. People were already working on other ways of diving, free of the bulky suit, the lead boots, the heavy metal collar and helmet.

  But until those ways were perfected, this was all they had.

  He moved quickly but with an awareness that the wreck could appear in front of him, out of the gloom, so suddenly. He felt his right boot step onto…something, and for a moment he lost his balance. The bottom was littered with everything from whiskey bottles to chunks of discarded furniture. A veritable dumping ground.

  He steadied himself, and looked ahead.

  Then—he saw the wreck, a small freighter used for training, with great gashes in its side and a deck stripped of anything valuable.

  He looked around for a sign of the other air hose, or bubbles escaping to the surface.

  But with the visibility so poor, he couldn’t see anything.

  Which way to go? It was potluck at this point. Pick one direction to circle the wreck, or the other. No matter. And every minute could be bringing bigger problems to the young diver.

  Sam took a deep breath, the compressed air with a dry, metallic taste. He licked his lips—a bit of moisture—but it didn’t do much good.

  He moved right, surging forward, head leading, going around the rusting freighter. Every step made a few more feet of the hull appear in the gloom.

  Come on, he thought. Where the hell are you? All the kid was supposed to do was find an opening, enter, take a look around, and then get out.

  Where the hell was—

  Sam stopped. He saw the air hose trailing into the wreck, a thick fat tube of life snaking into the hulk. Saw bubbles escaping.

  Could be this is my lucky day, Sam thought. Could be the kid is okay, just had a bit of trouble inside. The lifeline cut by some rust metal, but the thick air hose working fine. Take something seriously sharp to cut through that.

  Far more common for an air hose to get pinched, bent, and then cut the diver off from air.

  But with the bubbles escaping to the surface, this all looked okay.

  Sam trudged closer to the dark hole that the kid had selected for his jump into the wreck. Black, shadowy, hiding everything for now, but about to reveal just what was going on with the young diver.

  He grabbed his own tug line and gave it three strong yanks…meaning that he was okay down here.

  Okay for now.

  And maybe coming back up soon.

  What every diver hoped.

  Back up soon, for some laughs, some diving tales, a cold beer or two.

  Yeah. A nice image to hold.r />
  Sam moved to the wreck and the open gash.

  3

  Latitude 65, Longitude 65—

  Off the coast of Baffin Island, Canada

  THE VENTURE ROCKED, AND Carl Denham grabbed the railing even as he felt breakfast begin a nearly complete trip up his gorge and onto the soaked deck. He pulled and tightened the fur collar of his coat.

  The captain, Englehorn, seemed somehow magically stable, as if he had powerful magnets that kept him firmly planted on the deck. Denham, on the other hand, felt as if each swell were a bucking bronco ready to throw him over the side.

  “Damn, Englehorn, I’ve sailed a lot, but is the sea always like this?”

  The captain laughed and took a big puff on his pipe. Then he turned to Denham. “It’s the North Atlantic, Mr. Denham, in winter. Besides dodging the ice floes, you got swells and currents that can treat this ship like a toy.”

  Denham looked out to the ocean. He saw those swells, crazy dips in the sea that rocked back and forth, intersecting, overlapping, sometimes sending up a choppy plume of white water that he imagined was taller than the ship itself.

  “Right. I knew that. Just want to be sure this is all okay, all normal.”

  Another puff. “Oh, it’s normal, all right. Normal bad. At least we’re heading south. Might get a little better the closer we get to Nova Scotia.”

  The boat took another mad ride up one wave, sliding down another, before—Denham could clearly see—the Venture became sandwiched between two giant swells that seemed ready to make the small freighter into a pancake.

  “God,” Denham said.

  “No God here, Denham. Just the sea, doing what it’s always done.”

  The two swells hit, and a shower of icy water went flying over the deck. Denham saw the captain pull his cap down, then look up at the boathouse. Hayes was at the wheel.

  “Hayes okay?” Denham asked.

  “Okay? That man has a Crois de Guerre, won in battle. This wouldn’t rattle him. Me, I’m getting too old for this.”

  The Venture tilted left and right, bobbing so low that Denham thought that it might let the sea rush onto the deck, and down to the cabins.

  “You know, Denham, you can go below. Though I bet they’re feeling a lot worse than you are. I’ve already heard Lumpy screaming about the kitchen. Apparently tonight’s stew is all over. Guess it will be yesterday’s biscuits and some canned beans.”

  “Maybe we should heave to, lay anchor, or whatever the terminology is, Englehorn? Can’t there be hidden rocky outcrops out here—I sure wouldn’t want to abandon ship in this sea.”

  Another laugh from Englehorn, who, Denham realized, was clearly enjoying this.

  “As for any exposed outcrops, that’s why they invented charts. We know where we’re going.”

  For a moment, Denham considered going down below. Get out of the icy air, away from the crazy spray of sea water, the endless rolling and bobbing. But then—imagining the close quarters, the smell—he realized as nasty as it was on deck, it had to be better.

  And, he also thought…we’re heading south, back to New York—and we don’t have what we came for.

  There were implications to that last statement.

  Most of them financial.

  Zelman backed this little expedition because Denham had promised—promised—to deliver something amazing. He was so good at pitching, so good at creating the image of what was going to be on the silver screen.

  Imagine…he told them…footage of an animal at once real and mythic, an animal that dwarfs any shark ever seen, a sea creature capable of swallowing a seal in a single gulp. I’ll bring back amazing footage…and the story of the killer whale, the orca.

  But not just any orca, not just any killer whale. Denham had spoken to some of the fishermen out of Prince Edward Island who had run as far north as Baffin Island. They told him of seeing an orca that truly deserved the name killer. All fishermen exaggerate, but even if it was just an ancient whale feeding in the seal-rich waters, it would still be incredible.

  And if not, if he didn’t find this mythic orca?

  Then he’d still have great footage of schools of the sharklike whales, that and some of the natives, the local Inuit, their lives fading ever since the days Flaherty filmed his Nanook.

  By the time Denham finished pitching, the backers felt more than confident in bankrolling Denham’s’ cinematographic expedition to the north.

  And now?

  No orcas at all. Lots of seal, even some whales—all good footage, but not what he promised. Englehorn suggested that the killer whales might have gone south.

  “They follow the food, Denham. Just like the Eskimo. Follow the food, hunt. Could be—they’re not here.”

  That’s what Englehorn said, but Denham wondered if the steely-eyed captain just wanted to get the hell out of the sea. The Venture was better suited to the calmer waters of the tropics. And Englehorn didn’t want to risk losing his ship just to get Denham some great footage.

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Englehorn said as the vessel rose the crest of another massive swell, “finding a place to lay anchor. We’ll need some shelter though or it could be worse than chugging through this mess.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Let me talk to Hayes, look at the charts, and maybe”—he clapped Denham on the back—“bring you some relief, hm?”

  “Great.”

  Denham watched Englehorn turn and bolt up a ladder to the wheel room, moving deftly despite the rocking of the ship.

  And Denham returned to staring at the battling waves, as he rose up and down on the balls of his toes, trying to second-guess the erratic pattern as the ship bobbed and weaved through the stormy North Atlantic.

  4

  San Francisco Bay

  SAM TURNED AROUND AND CHECKED his air hose. It streamed down from the surface and there didn’t seem to be anything to catch it.

  At least, nothing for it to snag on out here.

  Inside the wreck would be a different story.

  He looked at the other air hose leading into the gaping hole. If the kid Tommy was in real trouble, then they would know topside. Once a diver stopped breathing and venting air from the suit, it became quite clear up there that a problem had arisen.

  So if the kid was in danger, at least he was still breathing.

  Sam reached out and grabbed a jagged edge of the opening. This freighter wreck had been used by the dive teams for more than five years, getting rustier, the oxidized iron hull turning nastier, sharper.

  Good thing they were closing this down before someone gets hurt.

  That is…if someone hadn’t gotten hurt already.

  He pushed into the opening, and immediately whatever little light and visibility there was vanished.

  Sam turned on the lamp attached to his belt. The batteries for the diving lights were heavy; rumor had it that there were some new types of lights being developed. But for now, he had to make do with a bulky light.

  Which is when he got worried.

  The other diver’s light should be on.

  Should be. He should see the glow of Tommy’s light inside the hull.

  Instead—nothing. Unless the trainee went in deep, turned a corner. He was supposed to just drop into the wreck for a look-see.

  That’s all. But did curiosity get the better of him? That, or confusion?

  Confusion. A diver’s worst enemy. You look around for where you came from, and then head in exactly the wrong direction. Maybe you cross over your air tube and start to panic.

  Confusion, panic, then you’re looking at making lots of mistakes.

  And with enough mistakes, you’re dead.

  It was as simple as that.

  Sam felt three tugs on his lifeline. He reached for it and gave three tugs back.

  All okay down here.

  That is, if you didn’t count the fact that the other diver had gone too deep.

  Sam took another step. The pale yellow light picked up the
outline of a bulkhead corridor. He knew that it led down a staircase leading to the bridge, and past the radio room and a small mess.

  He looked down there, and saw the other air hose trailing in, then vanishing in the gloom. Even with the light, he couldn’t see more than ten feet.

  But the diver was down here.

  Did Tommy get confused, curious?

  And was he now in trouble?

  That was the other thing; a diver in trouble was bad news. Try to rescue him, and it could turn into a panicked tussle, with shoes and lines tangling, until it became a trap for two.

  The two divers with their helmets close together, eyes wide with fear, realizing that they were now both looking at death.

  Sam reached out to the walls of the corridor to steady himself, and took a step forward.

  Only a few steps, still leading with his head for balance, hands to the side to steady himself—and Sam saw the glow.

  Right, Tommy’s light had to be getting weak. The batteries were crap; they just didn’t last long enough. The glow turned a sick yellow. But it told him that the diver was in the room to the right, the radio room.

  Sam tried to form a quick mental picture of it. Tall shelves with radio equipment. A long table, two chairs. Not the worst room to stumble into. Except for all that shelving.

  Not that sturdy, and probably had been loosened from the wall. Lots of exposed metal, jagged metal that rusted a bit more each week.

  Why did Tommy go in there?

  Sam took another few steps and then reached the entrance.

  He turned slowly. When you wore so much weight with the helmet, the lead yoke around your neck, the damn shoes, you had to move at a snail’s pace to avoid the sheer weight of the suit sending you flying.

  He saw the kid.

  Shit…

  Sam’s brighter light picked up the outline of the diver, the shelves, the furniture—and what had probably happened.

  5

  Off the coast of Baffin Island

  DENHAM FELT THE VENTURE START to turn, heading into the waves. Now the small freighter plowed into the massive swells, riding up and down. He could only imagine what it was like belowdecks.