The Deep 2015.06.23

by Michaelbrent Collings

  "Yeah," he said as soon as Mr. Raven had finished. "That sounds good."

  Geoffrey spoke up, and said probably the only thing he'd ever said that was worth the breath it took: "I'm in."

  Jimmy J was still mostly in the engine access port, and now he leaned forward and put his elbows on the deck. Entirely too relaxed. Disrespectful. "I don't know, Mr. R," he said.

  Tim nodded his approval. "We're not outfitted for this –"

  Another voice broke into the conversation. Sue. He expected resistance from her – and her resistance just made her that much sexier as she played hard to get on every single level – but she surprised him. "I'm in," she said.

  "Sue!" her father shouted. Prick. The old guy looked at her in shock. "Did you hear him? Whatever's down there is a hundred-and-fifty feet under us! And setting aside the fact that it should be eight hundred, we don't have any Nitrox or Trimix on the boat. We'd be diving with regular air and at that depth that's insane. That's guaranteed narcosis, that's maybe death, maybe bends."

  Sue rounded on her father. "What if Deb's down there? Or at least, what if that's her boat on the bottom? What if the diver we found came from whatever's below us, and we have to see that place to understand what happened to him?" She got quiet. She chewed her lower lip. Very hot. She looked like she knew her way around a good kiss and probably more. "You saw what he was wearing," she finally said. "Who he worked for. Just like Deb." She stared at her father. "We have to know."

  "Then let the Navy figure it out," he pleaded.

  Mr. Raven broke in, voice silky-smooth and reasonable. "Ah, but if we do that they'll set up a perimeter, investigate the wreck and the ocean floor indirectly, then peripherally, then go down only after days or perhaps even weeks. And even then they won't go inside any wrecks until they have made a concrete determination of ownership. Again: weeks, perhaps months." He smiled that reasonable, slightly predatory grin again. "Do you want to wait that long?"

  Cal threw up his hands. A full-body gesture that said, "I can't reason with you people." Haeberle was really starting to hate this guy.

  "One-fifty is deep into Narcville," said Jimmy J. He frowned. "No way we should go down there."

  "Jimmy J's right," said Tim. "This is a bad – a terrible – idea and I don't want any part of it."

  "Then none for you."

  Everyone – everything, the entire world – seemed to grind to a halt when Haeberle said that. His voice was as low as he let it go. Just on the verge of a lack of control, when he –

  (beat raped killed and laughed over it all)

  – let his most primal, most powerful self rule for a time.

  Jimmy J was the first to speak. "What do you mean?"

  "No one gets a share of the treasure unless they go. That's it."

  "Sure you don't mean me, Mr. Haeberle." Mr. Raven was still smiling. The smile had more teeth now. And Haeberle was about to say, "No, of course it doesn't," because at this point he was fairly certain that Mr. Raven was just one the figments of his mind that were locked off from his direct consciousness. Then Mr. Raven said something wrong. "It would be a long swim back to land, wouldn't it?"

  Haeberle froze. So this was one of the dream-people who existed to challenge him. Who existed to be put in his place.

  But not here. Not now. Sometimes it was easier to go along. Or to pretend to. "I think I can live with the captain getting an appropriate share," he said.

  "Fine." Raven's shark-toothed grin widened. "Then I suggest everyone get some rest. Tomorrow will be a big day."

  And everyone moved, in ones and twos, to the stairs that led down to the berths. Tim and Jimmy J kept trying to convince everyone not to commit to such a foolish goal.

  No one listened.

  Of course not. Because I want to go, and in the final analysis all of them are me.

  Jimmy J and Tim returned to their examination of the engine. Haeberle watched them for a while. Thought how easy it would be to kill them. Just a sharp blow on their necks, a stab with the right tool.

  He finally turned around. Headed downstairs as well.

  Not now.

  The time isn't right to do it.

  No, not now.

  But soon.

  WOUNDED

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Jimmy J finally headed to his berth. Tired. Exhausted, actually.

  And a bit scared.

  Not about the fact that they were floating dead in the water. The Navy would find them easily enough, and there were plenty of stores to get them through until then.

  No, he was worried about the other thing.

  His berth was a bit different than the others. With Mr. R's permission he had removed the top bunk in the back corner of the sleeping area. Then he'd swung a hammock across the gap that was created.

  He hadn't always slept like that, but then he saw Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, a movie about ocean-faring men at the turn of the nineteenth century. They all slept in hammocks, slung so close they rubbed each other in the night.

  Jimmy J wasn't fond of the idea of banging up against a sweaty shipmate all night long. Nor did he want to include the majestic realism of scurvy, beatings for insolence, or the buggering of other crewmembers when the ship's voyages got a bit on the long side.

  But the hammock thing was cool.

  His hammock was totally radical, bright red and green and yellow so it looked more than a little like a Rastafarian relic, even though Jimmy J had gotten it for ten dollars during a day trip to Baja California.

  At night he pulled the edges close to him. They curled in, almost covering him like a blanket. He felt secure in his hammock. And like a real sailor.

  Usually.

  Now, though, he felt very insecure. And being a sailor was far from his mind.

  The only thing he was really interested in was his arm.

  He'd worn a long-sleeve shirt for most of the night, mostly because the spot where something jabbed him when the stiff fell on him was sore and achy. He figured if he wore a lightweight, long-sleeve shirt it would help him forget about the discomfort.

  It didn't.

  Every small motion he made caused the cotton to rasp across his arm. It felt like sandpaper, and more than once he had thought of screaming. Thought of asking Tim or maybe Sue to take a look at whatever was going on.

  But he didn't.

  He wasn't sure why he didn't. He went to ask them a few times, once even going as far as tapping Tim on the shoulder.

  "Yeah?" Tim said.

  And Jimmy J didn't answer. Just shook his head and moved away, scratching his arm.

  Now, laying in the pea-pod shape of his hammock, he pulled up his right sleeve. Then peeled away the bandage that covered his wound.

  People around him were all snoring, and the light he clipped to the ropes near his head was a dim one, not enough to wake anyone.

  But it was enough to see the wound.

  There was a dark spot at the center, maybe a quarter-inch across. Like he had been bitten by a one-fanged vampire. Around the wound there was a ring of crusted blood, and around that was a larger ring of yellowish shores that freely wept a dark fluid.

  "Ew."

  The word sounded infantile, even to Jimmy J's ears. But it was all that came to mind. Especially when he saw the long black threads that spread out from the sores, reaching toward his hands, questing for the flesh of his chest.

  He thought he saw one of them move slightly, but it was just his imagination. Just a trick of his light that swayed slightly with the motion of his hammock.

  Still, the wound was beyond gross. And clearly needed attention.

  He leaned forward, intending to slip out of his hammock and go to Tim. To ask him if he'd ever seen anything like this, and if he had what to do about it.

  Then he turned back again. Slumped into his blanket. An exhaustion grabbed him. Hauled him by brute force back into his hammock.

  He closed his eyes.

  A last series of thoughts: />
  It's probably nothing.

  No, something!

  Nah… just….

  And he slept and dreamed sweet dreams and did not feel the things burrowing through his flesh.

  SCHOOL

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Tim stood at the rail that surrounded most of the aft deck and looked into the dark water as though it might offer some answers.

  None came. Of course not. The ocean had been what started all this, and whatever mysteries it held were mysteries it held close.

  The ocean was a strange thing. A harsh lover from which all life had been born, which life she could reclaim at her whim. Biblical stories talked about the flooding of the whole earth, and while Tim had his doubts about that event, he did not doubt that the many waters that covered most of the earth were far more powerful, beautiful, and capricious than the land. She gave, she took away.

  And now… now she held such secrets as he had never seen.

  The water, exploding below them.

  The ocean floor, casting itself up hundreds of feet in an instant.

  The allure it carried for so many in the ship.

  That last was one he truly didn't understand. Diving was one thing. Diving a hundred-fifty feet was another. And diving that far into a world that had suddenly begun to act so strangely? Madness.

  Splashing broke him out of his reverie. A shiver rolled through his frame, and for a moment he was gripped by the dread certainty that one of the passengers had fallen over the side. Was struggling in the dark water that surrounded the boat, unseen and soon to be lost.

  Then reality poked a hole in the waking dream. The splashing wasn't that of a panicked man or woman. Wasn't the splashing of any kind of man or woman, panicked or not.

  He turned on a deck light, illuminating the area on deck and a small halo of light around the back of the boat.

  He saw. Saw, but didn't believe.

  Fish surrounded the boat.

  That in itself wasn't so extraordinary. He had seen huge congregations of fish before, schooling together for protection from the larger fish – tuna, marlins – that constantly attacked and tried to eat them. He had even been in a boat one night off the coast of Mexico, surrounded by thousands of Humboldt Squid as they attacked prey and one another with abandon. Their huge bodies slamming into anything that moved – even the boat Tim had been on – was one of the only times he had been afraid of the ocean.

  Until today.

  And what he saw right now only added to the unease –

  (fear)

  – he'd been feeling since they found the body in the water.

  It wasn't a school of fish. It was something else.

  Millions of fish spun in silvered flashes through the water. As far as he could see, their bodies twirling through the water, surrounding The Celeste. But they didn't simply swim. They flapped at the surface in a carpet so thick Tim was fairly sure he could have walked across them like a strange kind of living land. A single organism whose cells were so large they could be seen by the naked eye.

  And stranger perhaps was the fact that the fish around the boat were not of a single kind. Not sardines or threadfin or fusiliers or salema or any other single fish. This was a spinning, whirling mass of fish composed of what seemed like millions of different individuals from different species. Reds and yellows battled for space with silvers and greens and blues. Small bodies flickered between large. Sharks and other predators swam alongside smaller fish that would have been their food in other circumstances.

  But they weren't eating each other. They just swam. Spun. More than a few flew into the air, swimming up from the deep so quickly that they went briefly airborne before slapping back to the water's surface.

  They swirled their mad dance. A maelstrom both terrifying and beautiful, a hurricane of color with The Celeste in its eye.

  Then, just as fast as they had come, they were gone. One moment they were everywhere, then Tim blinked and the water was calm again. The only sound the gentle slap of the ocean against the hull of The Celeste, as though reminding him that he floated not in air but in the neverwhere between air and water, the dividing line between the places humanity was meant to be and realms beyond its ken.

  The ocean was dark.

  He was alone.

  And the light went off.

  The nimbus that surrounded the boat disappeared, and Tim felt terror pierce his skin, felt his stomach ball up into a tight knot.

  He hadn't touched the light.

  So who had?

  The darkness was thick, so complete that there was no telling where air ended and sea began. Not by sight.

  But as dark as it was, Tim felt… something. A presence.

  He turned.

  There was someone behind him. A form in the dark salon. He couldn't make out features. But he felt like whoever it was was watching him.

  "Jimmy J?"

  The shadowed figure remained motionless.

  "Jimmy J, if you're trying to scare me…." Tim's throat went suddenly dry. His tongue felt like a brick in his mouth. "You're doing a great job," he managed. He had hoped to deliver the words as a joke. An invitation for whoever was watching him to laugh and clap and scream, "Gotcha!"

  Instead the dark figure moved away. Silent, and something in its motion – strange, rolling, graceful but not normal – made Tim's stomach tighten another notch. He felt suddenly like he might urinate, might lose control of his body.

  The form moved down the stairs. Toward the berths.

  Sue.

  It was a strange thought. He had only met the woman a few days ago, had only come to know her on this one trip. But she was the one he thought about. The one that motivated him to move.

  What if something happens to her?

  What do you think is going to happen?

  He had no answer.

  But the question moved him after the figure. Into the salon, moving fast enough that he barely missed slamming into the extended edge of the table in the dark space. Hustling toward the barely-there glow of a few dim lights belowdecks.

  He ran down the stairs. Stood in the slim passage between the galley storage and the sleeping area.

  The door that led to the berths was closed.

  Click.

  Tim frowned.

  There weren't many options down here. Not many places to go. Just the berths, or storage, or the head.

  Had the door to the galley storage clicked?

  But why would anyone go in there?

  Suddenly Tim didn't care. No, he cared, but he didn't want to know. Didn't want to keep following whoever –

  (whatever)

  – had led him down here.

  But he kept moving. He had to. People depended on him to show them a good time, to keep them safe. And while the former seemed to have disappeared as an option over the last few hours, the latter still remained as his responsibility.

  He went to the galley storage door.

  What are you expecting?

  Nothing. I'm sure it's nothing.

  He felt the words as a lie.

  He opened the door.

  Dark. Not just the dark of above-decks, the dark of a sky full of stars, the dark that reminded you that you were at least a part of something, even though that something was grand and terrible and huge beyond conception. The dark in the storage room was complete. No portholes to let in the slightest glimmer of light, no lights on inside.

  Just black.

  And Tim heard no movement. No scrape of shoe on floor, not even a breath.

  He reached in and flicked on the light. It was dim – the batteries were draining. But he had to see. Had to see…

  … nothing.

  There was nowhere to hide in the small room. Just the stores, dry goods, canned goods, some dive equipment.

  And the body on the floor.

  He stared at it. Trying to remember.

  Was it like that before?

  Of course it was. It had to be.

  The body sti
ll lay under its tarp. Quiet, lifeless, silent.

  But Tim could see its head – some of it at least. And could see something that made him go nearly as still as the dead man.

  The head.

  The hair.

  Did we lay him facedown?

  No, we didn't – did we?

  Yes. Yes, we must have. Because that's how he is now. Or maybe someone looked at him. Maybe someone flipped him over to cover that awful mess that he was, the gutted shape, the body that had no body other than arms and feet and head.

  Yeah. Someone moved it.

  Someone.

  He stared at the body. Realized he was holding his breath, realized blood was pounding through his head with drum beats that had begun to speed up.

  He let out the breath. Sucked in another.

  Didn't breathe.

  Sure. Someone moved it.

  But he didn't believe it. Not even when he turned the light out and stepped out of the storage room and closed the door. He expected to feel a cold hand on his arm, a scratching voice in his ear. Expected his doom.

  None of it happened, though. The dead stayed dead. The light went off, but no monster appeared in the darkness.

  Tim stepped out of the room.

  Closed the door.

  Latched it.

  BUBBLE

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Getting ready for a deep dive – and one-hundred-fifty feet qualified – is vastly different than getting ready for a recreational dive.

  Most deep divers favor drysuits instead of the traditional wetsuits. The function of a wetsuit is to allow a thin layer of water into the suit that will be warmed by the body's heat, keeping the diver warm. But at one-hundred-fifty feet the water is pressing down on the diver at over four atmospheres – more than four times the pressure per square inch that it does at the surface. The pressure crushes wetsuits flat, squeezing out the warmth and allowing the diver to feel every degree of cold the deep has to offer. Drysuits are water-tight, and the buoyancy control device (or BC) pushes air into them, just enough for the body to keep an insulated layer of air between the diver and that biting – potentially deadly – cold.

  The same pressure that crushes wetsuits flat also crushes air into and out of the body. On the surface, a diver might take in .6 cubic feet of air with every breath. At one-hundred-fifty feet, that same diver will have sucked three cubic feet of air with every breath. Deep divers don't take the one tank that people see scuba divers using on television – they have several slung to their backs, several more to their sides.