The Deep 2015.06.23

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Easy for a man of greatness – or greatness to come – to conquer.

  He checked the bottom finder: a sonar sensor built to help find – and even identify – fish below the boat. It also measured bottom contours, structure details, thermoclines, and more. Its usefulness was limited over water this deep, but it still might –

  He stopped moving. His entire body tight as he saw what was on the display of the bottom finder. He flicked the screen. Same. Same thing that made no sense.

  "That's not possible," he said.

  And it wasn't. Even less so than finding a dead body in the middle of open ocean. Less even than a wave coming out of nowhere and disappearing as fast as it came.

  He turned off the bottomfinder. Booted it up again.

  Same thing.

  He checked the result on his other instruments.

  "Impossible," he muttered again. Because what he was seeing was just that.

  But the instruments all agreed.

  The impossible was reality.

  He licked his lips. Not sure whether he was frightened or excited. Perhaps it was both. Life was full of moments fraught with both danger and promise.

  This was his moment.

  He felt it.

  FIND

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Jimmy J didn't like dead things. That was one of the reasons he wasn't a butcher. His dad had been a butcher, his uncle. His grandfather.

  And they weren't just butchers, either. Grampa Jim started out with a butcher shop in the sixties, but by the early seventies he had eight shops and a meat packing plant. By the eighties – when Dad started, they were the fifth largest meat wholesaler in the nation.

  Jimmy J was supposed to follow in their footsteps. To work at one of the corner shops they still owned, then work his way up on a predetermined course that would lead inevitably to a big office overlooking the floor of one of the plants. Security, even riches.

  But the idea of cutting up all that meat, spending day after day looking at dead flesh that was supposed to turn into steaks and hot dogs and McBurgers. The thing was that Jimmy J liked eating those things. And he didn't know if he still would after watching the "before" part of his favorite "afters."

  So he ended up on the sea. There are two kinds of people who end up working in the ocean – three if you count the scientific types, like Sue and maybe her dad seemed to be. But he didn't count them. They were just professors who used the ocean as lab projects. Maybe they loved it, but only in tandem with their love of science. Not a pure love.

  So the other two people who you found at sea were people born to it, or people whom the sea had adopted. Jimmy J was the latter. He wasn't the son of seafaring folk – no fishermen or even Navy in his background. But he felt the water in his veins, felt the lust and love for the rolling ocean the first time he set foot on a boat. Grammy J almost shot him when he told her he wanted to be a diver, then almost slit her own wrists out of guilt for giving him that first day trip as a birthday present.

  The sea was magical. The sea was his, and he belonged to her as well.

  He never looked back.

  Still, at this moment he kind of wondered if he would have been better off at the butcher shop. Certainly butcher shops never exploded beneath you, never sent you flying into dead bodies that seemed to bite you – his arm still hurt from where the unknown something had pinched him.

  Mr. R suddenly exploded out of the wheelhouse. Dropped down the ladder to the deck and ran past Jimmy J. He was mumbling, and Jimmy J focused on him – something to distract himself from what had just happened, and the dead body that still lay disconcertingly close.

  "What's wrong, Mr. R?" he said.

  "Not possible," Mr. R was mumbling, over and over. "Not possible. Not…."

  Mr. R looked at the body, still oozing water and black muck onto the deck. Jimmy J realized that Haeberle had moved close to the corpse and was poking it with grim fascination.

  Geez, that guy gives me the creeps.

  And he did. He was big, he was way too intense to be out on something as tranquil as the open ocean was

  (Or at least as tranquil as the open ocean should be.)

  – in weather like this.

  Then the big guy stopped poking. He reached for the corpse's hand. For a second Jimmy J had the weird feeling that the big guy was going to hold hands with the dead dude. Some kind of love affair that only the psycho could understand.

  Then Jimmy J realized there was something in the dead guy's hand.

  Haeberle reached for it, but another hand darted in. Mr. R. He had a look on his face that Jimmy J didn't like. Hot and bothered and excited all at once. Like he had spotted a particularly good-looking girl at a party. But not one he was interested in striking up a conversation with, just someone he wanted to screw and then drop.

  "What are you doing?" said a voice. Sue. Cool chick. She had spotted Mr. R and Haeberle and apparently also the fact that the Señor Deado was holding something. But she didn't look like she was interested in handholding.

  Neither was Jimmy J. His right arm tingled, with a core of pain on his forearm. He glanced at it; saw nothing. No bite, no irritation. But it still hurt, and he wondered what had got him.

  "Mr. R," he said, "I don't know if you should touch –"

  "Shut up, Jimmy," said Mr. R. It was nearly a snarl. Rabid enough that Jimmy J actually fell back a step.

  Mr. R had his hand on the dead dude's hand. Pulling at the fingers. They wouldn't open.

  Mr. R grunted. Jimmy J's jaw dropped as he heard a shearing crackle. Fingers breaking. "Uh, I really don't –"

  "Shut up, Jimmy."

  More crackles. They made Jimmy J's teeth feel like they were turning inside out, made his tongue go dry in his mouth.

  Bad juju.

  Then Mr. R yanked something free. Held it up.

  It was a disc. Crusted in algae. Some of it fully black.

  And some of it glinted in his hand.

  Gold.

  Jimmy J wasn't a treasure hunter, wasn't a technical diver like Mr. R had been six hundred years ago. He was just a dude who loved the ocean. But even he knew what Mr. R was holding. This wasn't just gold, it was treasure.

  Mr. R looked at the body. So did everyone else.

  What happened to you, Dead Dude?

  Mr. R's eyes were half-closed, like he was thinking something he didn't want shining through. The look made Jimmy J's teeth continue their slow inward turn. So did the look on Haeberle's face.

  Jimmy J suddenly knew the big guy wanted that gold piece. And wondered how bad. If he'd be willing to kill to get it.

  Nah. Don't be dumbtastic, dude. Not for a piece of gold.

  How 'bout for a lot of pieces?

  And that made Jimmy J cold, because he thought the answer to that question was probably a big fat "yes."

  MOTIONS

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Sue wanted to turn over the body. To take a good look at it, to find out what had happened to it.

  And if it could tell her anything about what had happened to Debi.

  But they ended up putting that off. Because of what had happened in the ocean. Because of the gold.

  Because of whatever Mr. Raven wasn't telling them.

  That he wasn't telling something was obvious in his carriage, in the rigid way he moved. Something had him upset – or excited – and it wasn't just the gold piece he hadn't let go since they found it.

  Everyone was acting strange. That was to be expected, she supposed. Not every day a rogue wave slams into your boat, almost capsizing you. Not every day you find a dead body in the waves. Not every day you find what looks like pirate's booty in the hand of that dead body.

  But there was more to the strangeness. A feeling in the air, making everyone jittery. Something was wrong. Not just what they knew about, but something they didn't.

  Her examination of the body had to wait. Mr. Raven insisted on getting the body off the deck. Jimmy J replied that he'd be happy to do so, as soon a
s he made sure Tim wasn't going to die.

  Tim had waved him off, expressing "I'm fine" with the motion. But even that small movement caused blood to well out of his cut chin. Jimmy J told him to "shove it, mi compadre." And Sue thought that was great of him.

  Jimmy J disappeared into the salon, then reappeared with a first aid kit. He slathered Tim's chin with liquid bandage, which hardened into a translucent second skin. Then he slapped a butterfly bandage perpendicular to the cut. "Just to make double sure you don't bleed to death."

  "I'm not going to bleed to death."

  "Sucks for me. If you do, I call your stuff."

  Then Mr. Raven insisted that something be done about the body. Jimmy J picked up the feet with a sigh. Looked at Haeberle.

  "What do you want?" growled the big man. His eyes flashed dangerously.

  Jimmy J didn't seem to notice. Or maybe his easygoing nature was just impervious to threatening looks from homicidal-seeming giants. "You're a big strapping boy. Mind helping?"

  Haeberle looked like he was going to tell Jimmy J to shove it up his ass, then looked around at the alternatives. Tim: still a bit woozy-seeming. Cal: old. Mr. Raven: the guy in charge. Geoffrey: still whining about all that had happened, kind of curled up on the side of the deck and mumbling to himself with an occasional "no fair" and "bastard" being the only real words Sue could make out.

  Mercedes and Sue: women. Somehow she knew that meant they couldn't be counted on – in his mind, at least – if they were even worthy of consideration at all.

  So he growled and grabbed the body by the shoulders. Face curling as more black ooze spilled from the cuts, ran off the waxy substance that was all that remained of its face.

  "Where?" he grunted.

  Jimmy J looked at Mr. Raven. "Storage," said the boat's owner and captain.

  The two men went into the salon, then Jimmy J directed Haeberle toward the stairs that led down. Mr. Raven followed, and a moment later so did Tim. He tottered for a moment, and Cal grabbed him. "Lean on me," said Sue's father.

  Tim nodded thanks. "Little woozy."

  "Yeah, you fought a boat with your face. Brave," said Jimmy J.

  "Dumb," he said.

  "Yeah, pretty dumb," Jimmy J said with a grin and a wag of his eyebrows to indicate Tim had won the argument – but was that such a good thing?

  Sue followed them all. They left Geoffrey and Mercedes on the deck. Mercedes moved to check on Geoffrey as they passed by, and Sue heard him voice a last "bastardsonofacrap" before she went down the stairs.

  By the time she was at the bottom, Jimmy J and Haeberle were already disappearing into the storage room opposite the cabin where everyone slept. A crinkling sound came to her, and when she looked in the storage door, she saw the body being laid out on a blue tarp.

  It was a tight fit. The storage room held everything from extra scuba tanks to netting to the dry goods food. It was all on the walls, in sturdy cage-shelves that had managed to contain most of it when the wave hit the boat. But there was some stuff dripping, a few boxes and cans that had exploded in their sections and caused a mess.

  The body took up most of the narrow space between the two rows of shelving and storage. Just enough room to stand at the head, where Jimmy J was, room at the foot where Haeberle stood, and to maybe squeeze one more person in.

  Haeberle looked at the body again. Then, suddenly, he lurched forward. Before anyone really understood what he was doing he had begun slapping his big palms all over the corpse.

  Sue felt her eyes widen in tandem with everyone else's.

  What's he –?

  He's frisking the corpse.

  He's looking for more gold.

  She had barely managed to process these facts when Haeberle finished. He sighed, a quick, hard exhale like that of a moderately irritated rhino. Then he left. Apparently not interested in the corpse if it had no more treasure to yield.

  Sue slipped inside the storage room. She leaned in to the body. This time someone had enough wits to question the move.

  "I don't think we should –" began Tim.

  "We need to find out what happened," Sue replied.

  "I kinda agree, man," said Jimmy J. He pointed at the wounds that covered the body: the weird gashes across most of the body's trunk, arms, legs. Still oozing dark goo. "I never seen anything like that before. Gives me the creepy crawlies."

  Sue realized everything he had just said was ambiguous: he could be advocating for her to look at the body, or he could be siding with Tim.

  Even though the latter was more likely, she chose the interpretation she preferred.

  Two against one, Tim. You lose.

  She wondered absently if he'd get upset. And if he did get upset would he want to talk about it? Maybe more?

  Down, girl. Down. One thing at a time.

  Plus there's a dead body right here. Not the best time to ask a guy out. Yeah, there's that.

  One of the shelves was magnetized and doubled as a small emergency tool box. A number of objects stuck tightly to it, including a folding utility knife which she grabbed and flipped open. Then a fast move and a faster swipe with the knife, and she had cut a long slit in the wetsuit, from the nape of the neck to just above the groin.

  She had never seen anything that would cut a wetsuit the way this one had been slashed: long, thin cuts all over the body. She thought there might be a chance the body had gotten stuck in a cave or wreck, and the slits were the result of the diver wrestling his (or her – there was no real way to tell at this point) way out of a tight squeeze.

  Maybe a propeller? Maybe he wandered into range of his boat's prop as it was starting?

  No. Neither would account for these gashes in the suit.

  So she cut it open.

  Looked.

  And almost screamed.

  There was nothing in the suit. Just some bone sticking up from the pelvis, others from where the arms apparently still extended into the sut.

  But where the trunk was: nothing. No flesh at all, save a few smeared clumps that she suspected would turn out to be entrails upon close inspection.

  How? I touched the thing. Touched the chest. It was rigid. There was something there, I know it.

  But if so, where had it gone?

  The opening of the suit released a strong odor: the suit smelled like the sea inside. But not the good, clean smell of deep water. This was the rotten smell you encountered when wandering near piers or groynes on the beach: decomposing animals and seaweed, water left stagnant, perhaps the offal of animals (human included). It was tangy, unpleasant.

  Tim broke out of his paralysis first, leaning in to look closer at what everyone could plainly see.

  Jimmy J was a close second. "What the hell? What the hell?"

  Her father spoke, startling Sue. She had almost forgotten that he was behind her. Which was appropriate given how much time he'd spent with her as a child.

  "What could do that?" he asked. "Shark?"

  Tim shook his head. "Not without eating through the suit as well. This… I don't know. I've never heard of anything like this."

  For some reason –

  (Imagination. It's my imagination.)

  – the corpse, eyeless face staring at the ceiling of the storage area, seemed suddenly to be smiling. The exposed teeth hadn't moved –

  (Had they?)

  – but her imagination changed the death-grimace to a smile of hidden import. The dead diver knew what had happened, but it's face seemed to chant, "I'll never tell, I'll never tell, what you don't know might kill you, but I'll never tell."

  The face suddenly disappeared from view as Tim flipped the slashed pieces of the suit back over the nothing at the center of the body, then covered all of it with blue tarp. The dark eye sockets, the grimacing teeth, the waxy brown once-flesh – all disappeared under a crinkling blue sheet of thick plastic.

  She was glad. The face, the empty hole where a torso should have been… it was all so disgusting, so wrong that she wished she
could excise the memory of it from her mind.

  At the same time, though, she hated that she couldn't see the thing. Because what if it did something? What if it was doing something even now, beneath the tarp that shielded it from view?

  Did the tarp just move? Did something move under it?

  Did the body move?

  No. Of course not. She resisted the urge to throw the tarp aside. There would be no change in the corpse's position, no chance it could be moving under its own strength.

  It was dead.

  One of the people on Debi's boat was dead.

  How, when, why? Still mysteries.

  Sue had found something that should have been a major clue. Should have drawn her closer to answering the question of what had happened to her sister.

  Instead, it seemed like she had more questions than ever.

  The tarp settled a bit more. Crinkled. There was that illusion of movement under the tarp again.

  No. Just imagination.

  Just imagination.

  Imagination.

  She shivered.

  "Okay, everyone," said Mr. Raven. Sue started. For a moment she had almost forgotten there were other people around. It had been just her and a corpse. Just her and the –

  (moving)

  – silent dead.

  "I need to see everyone in the salon," said Mr. Raven.

  "Why?" said Jimmy J. His voice sounded dreamy, like he was falling asleep, or perhaps just waking up. Sue couldn't tell if that was because he was reacting to the shock of the body, the wave, everything that had happened; or if she was just hearing things wrong. Her senses seemed to be playing tricks on her.

  "If I tell you now, Jimmy, I'll just have to repeat it to Mercedes and Geoffrey." His expression turned in on itself. His eyes grew flinty and even colder than they usually were. "But we need to talk about something important."

  Tim nodded at the tarp-covered corpse. "I think we've got plenty to talk about right here."