The Deep 2015.06.23

by Michaelbrent Collings

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Sue and Cal were asleep in one set of bunks, Haeberle snored away on another berth.

  Mercedes did not sleep. Could not. She felt a lump below her mattress and thought briefly of the story of the princess and the pea. Only she was no princess, and this was definitely no pea she lay on.

  She heard a rasp below her: Tim, turning the pages of the book he was reading by flashlight. She had seen the book before she got into her berth: some horror thing about a family that got trapped in their own house. And she wondered how he could read anything scary in a situation like this.

  His berth hadn't been below hers originally. Nor had Cal and Sue shared a bunk set. But the passengers who had originally spread out had, without words, gathered together. Only Haeberle slept apart, seemingly unconcerned by all that had happened. He gave her that look of his, that hungry look, as he climbed into his bed.

  She hoped they were never alone together. She sensed it would be dangerous.

  Tim turned another page.

  She felt what was under the mattress.

  Came to a decision.

  He'll think you're crazy.

  Maybe that's okay. Maybe it would be better if I imagined this.

  She leaned over the side of her bunk. "Tim," she whispered.

  He started, his body twitching in surprise. He looked up, a sheepish grin on his face. "Yeah, Mercedes?" he said. His voice was kind. Always kind, always concerned.

  She knew it was his job, knew he was being paid to attend to them. Still, she sensed he would have spoken to her this way even with no money at all on the line for him. He was, she believed, kind.

  So there are still a few kind men left.

  "You asked what I saw down there. Why I wanted to go back down."

  "Uh-huh," he said.

  She pulled it out from under her mattress. The thing she had touched; the treasure she had brought up from below. She handed it down to him.

  "I found it in the wreck."

  Tim took it. Turned it over in his hands with a vague curiosity. "What is it?" he said.

  "A Doc McStuffins doll."

  (Hands. Small hands, reaching for her. Calling her.)

  "Weird," he said. Still looking at the doll. Slightly warped, dirty from where it had rested. One eye –

  (not one eye the same eye)

  – scratched nearly to the point of being indistinguishable. But intact – surprisingly so. "I got the feeling the ship was pretty old. World War II."

  "Me, too."

  "Do you know if these dolls were around in the forties?"

  "No. No way. Feel the plastic, too. It's new."

  (And not knowing if they felt through the dark for the doll, or for her. Not knowing which would be worse… or better.)

  "Maybe fell off the ship that Sue's sister was on."

  Mercedes shook her head. "And got into a locked chest, inside the wreck?"

  Tim fell silent. Turned the doll over in his hands a few times, then handed it back to her. He was visibly –

  (frightened)

  (Hands searching. Reaching for her.)

  – disconcerted. "Weird," he said.

  "No," she answered. "The weird thing is that my daughter had this exact doll. And its eye got scratched up when she and my son got into a big fight about six months ago.

  They stared at each other. Then Mercedes leaned back onto her bed, cradling the doll in her hands.

  Tell him the other thing. The thing that makes it not just weird, but terrifying.

  No.

  "What do you… what do you think is happening?" asked Tim.

  "I don't know," she said. Then, before she could think about it too much, she added, "But the other thing that happened…."

  "Yeah?"

  No. Don't. Don't. DON'T.

  "I thought I saw my kids down there. Reaching for me from deeper in the boat. Barely saw them through the sand and oil I'd stirred up, but…." She couldn't finish.

  "Narcosis," said Tim. But his voice was hushed. Low. She didn't think he'd be doing any more scary reading tonight.

  "Yeah," she said. Even though –

  (it was real)

  – she didn't remember feeling narced when it happened. More joyous. More like if she followed them she'd find the answers to everything. To happiness, to a return to the way it had been.

  She hadn't followed. But it had been hard. So hard.

  She held the doll above her face. "Do you know what's going on, Doc?" she whispered. So low there was no way Tim could hear her.

  After a time – she couldn't tell how long – she heard Tim shut his book. Roll over.

  He didn't turn his light off.

  CARGO

  ~^~^~^~^~

  All was quiet.

  Only the bounce of the waves, the gentle shifting of gear.

  Mr. Raven slept, as he always did, in the pilot's chair in the wheelhouse.

  Sue, Cal, and Tim slept fitfully belowdecks. Haeberle slept the deep sleep of the innocent and the insane.

  Mercedes dragged something onto the deck.

  Her hand was a black mass, oozing, capturing the glint of starlight on its slick flesh.

  She pulled her cargo fully out of the salon.

  Jimmy J's body. Still wrapped in the forever-cocoon of his hammock.

  She yanked the bundle to the edge of the dive platform. Stopping every few feet and cocking a head as if listening for the others to come and stop her. Or perhaps listening to something darker, and deeper, and farther away.

  When she got her prize to the edge of the dive platform she waited. Looked up at the stars. Panting with the effort.

  She scratched at hand and arm. Flesh peeled off in ragged strips. She did not notice.

  A moment later, something emerged from the darkness below the water. Tendrils like those that had bound eel's head to eel's body in a gruesome sewing that none of the beings aboard the ship had seen.

  Mercedes did not appear worried. Did not even appear to notice what was happening. She just scratched, and scratched, and peeled rotting flesh from her body.

  The tendrils writhed. Searched. Found the hammock. They pierced it. Pushed deep.

  The hammock moved. Perhaps the tendrils. Perhaps the gift it held.

  Then the tendrils yanked. Pulled Jimmy J – what had been him, once upon a time – into the deep.

  Mercedes scratched, scratched, scratched. Flesh falling to the dive platform at her feet.

  More tendrils appeared. They curled around the shreds of skin and drew them off the platform as well.

  Mercedes turned.

  Went to the ladder that led to the wheelhouse. Climbed.

  Mr. Raven snored in his chair. She ignored him.

  Headed for the ship's controls.

  SPLASH

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Tim's eyes fluttered. Then snapped fully open when he heard the splash.

  He sat up so fast he banged his head on the bunk above his. Swiveled and shot his feet over the edge of his berth, then stood. Looked around. Mercedes was still asleep on her bunk, her arm tangled up in a blanket that looked strangely like a snake trying to swallow her.

  Cal and Sue were blinking, apparently awakened by the noise as well. Sue had already swiveled and put her feet on the cold floor. "What?" she mumbled.

  Tim looked at the last bunk. The empty bunk.

  Haeberle's bunk.

  He rushed out of the room, past the storage room –

  (Was that open last night?)

  – and up the stairs to the salon. Then out to the deck, where….

  "You sonofabitch! You knew he was going to do this!"

  Mr. Raven didn't turn from where he stood at the edge of the dive platform. But his words shot back like nails: piercing, nearly overcome with a sharp rage. "Of course I did, you fool. But it was easier to appear to give in than to fight you."

  He turned now. Pointed. Tim wasn't sure what he was pointing at, but then realized: Geoffrey's fishing gear. Not fully sto
wed, just shoved off to the side of the deck.

  "The hook is set when you let out slack, not when you pull," he said with a smirk.

  Tim growled. Ran for the salon. The rest of the group were just coming up the stairs. Cal and Sue looked askance, but neither they nor Mercedes, who trailed behind in a long-sleeve blouse that looked oddly over-formal here and with hands buried deep in her pockets, said a thing.

  Tim ran to the front deck. Then back through a moment later, holding his gear in a massive bundle.

  "Want some treasure for yourself?" said Mr. Raven.

  Tim threw him the angriest look he could muster. "No, I just don't want another person dying on my watch."

  He geared up as fast as he could, which didn't seem fast at the best of times. Not with the one-hundred-plus pounds of gear needed for a deep dive. No, not fast at all.

  Slow, slow, slow.

  (Just let him go.)

  The tiny voice at the back of his mind urged him to just stop. Haeberle was bound and determined to go down, wasn't he? He was an adult, correct?

  And he was scary. Damn scary. A fuse about to burn to its nub and ignite some explosive fury that Tim didn't want to be around to see.

  (So just… let him go.)

  He growled and shouldered the last of his gear. Then flapped his way to the dive platform.

  "Don't you want to know what he's doing? Where he's going?" asked Mr. Raven casually.

  Tim stopped. Trying to ignore his own whispered entreaties to just stay put and let this play out.

  No. No one else dies. No one.

  "I printed more bottom profiles last night." Mr. Raven licked his lips. An expression the eerie mirror of Haeberle's playing across his face. "There are more ships below us. I'm certain of it. Haeberle took an extra length of line down, and he's letting the current take him beyond the first wreck, to see what he can find." Mr. Raven coughed delicately. "I suggest you do the same. We could all come out of this rich as barons."

  He produced a spool of cable. Extra-long: enough for Tim to let go searching on his own.

  Tim took it. He had no intention of treasure hunting. But maybe this would help him find Haeberle.

  He clipped the spool securely to him. Shoved the regulator in his mouth.

  Stepped off the platform.

  Fell.

  No fish this time.

  He was utterly alone.

  SEIZE

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Sue watched as the bubbles that Tim trailed slowly dissipated. Spread so far by the intervening water that the swells ate them and spat them out in bits too small to discern.

  "Anyone want breakfast while we wait for our intrepid treasure hunters?" asked Mr. Raven. "We have three kinds of dry cereal aboard. My favorite, of course, is Cap'n Crunch."

  Sue looked at her father. "I'm going after him." She moved away from the dive platform, toward where her own gear was stowed.

  "Sue, don't." Cal looked pained. "You don't have to fight every fight."

  She threw a look over her shoulder. Suddenly disgusted. The attempts at closeness melted away. "And you don't have to give up every time."

  She took another step. Then Mercedes positioned herself in front of her. The other woman put a hand on Sue's shoulder.

  "Don't," she whispered. "There are things down there. Bad things."

  That was weird enough that it actually stopped Sue. Cut off her forward momentum as surely as if it had never existed. "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "I… I…." Mercedes looked like she was fighting herself. Struggling to find the words.

  Then, suddenly, her eyes rolled so far back in her head that only whites showed. Colorless orbs that were utterly alien in appearance.

  Mercedes fell.

  Her body curled in on itself, then thrashed back. Repeated the motion.

  She was having a seizure.

  DARK

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Tim fell. It seemed like the darkness was greater this time. Reaching for him, wanting to not just surround, but to utterly possess him.

  He dropped past the spot that had held the reserve tank yesterday… gone now.

  Dropped past the strobe. Dark. Battery spent.

  He hit his light. Wondered if it would even turn on down here.

  Why think that?

  An image of a child's doll played before his eyes in the instant before the light clicked on. One good eye, one ruined. He suspected that when the light did switch on, it would illuminate a thousand of those dolls, reaching for him in the darkness.

  But the light showed nothing. Just the empty silence of a dead place.

  He continued down.

  MESS

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Cal reached Mercedes first. Grabbed her and tried to remember what the hell you did for someone who was having a seizure.

  Hold them? Let them go? Jam something in their mouth?

  Nothing sounded right. Nothing sounded good. But he had to do something. Sue was wrong – he didn't always just sit back and let life happen. If he had, then maybe Debi would have found her own job. A different job.

  Maybe she'd still be alive.

  That was his own burden to bear. Forever heavy, never relenting.

  What do I do? What can I do?

  Her blouse had ridden up on her arms, and they were whipping back and forth so fast they were nothing but a blur.

  Cal grabbed her arms. The skin was wet. Loose. He couldn't hold.

  The skin sloughed off in his hands.

  Cal screamed. Shrieked and looked at his own palms, which were suddenly covered in the wrecked flesh of another person.

  Sue was there a moment later. She didn't hesitate. Just flipped the other woman over and lay across Mercedes' chest, pinning her to the deck.

  "What's going on?" shouted Mr. Raven. "What's happening?"

  "I don't know!" screamed Sue.

  Cal ripped his gaze away from the slime, the gore, that coated his hands, and looked at Mercedes. Sue had her pinned, his daughter laying perpendicular to the other woman. Her face was practically rubbing up against the deck as she bore down as hard as she could.

  That was why she couldn't see. If she had seen, she would scream and jump off Mercedes, would jump away as fast as she could.

  No. She wouldn't. You would, but not her. Maybe she's right about you.

  Something was writhing under the bare skin visible at Mercedes' throat, just above the neckline of her blouse. Dark lines that moved back and forth, giving the impression of plant tendrils reaching for sun, for sustenance.

  But what's there to eat up there? In her head?

  Cal's thoughts pinwheeled through his mind, unmoored and tossed in the madness of the moment.

  The tendrils disappeared. Though whether they had died or withdrawn to her trunk or simply drawn deeper into her throat, below sight, Cal couldn't tell. Whatever they had done, it triggered a new reaction. Mercedes' body clenched, her entire frame rising as her back arched and her head and feet became the only points of contact with the deck.

  Then she fell back. Slack. Loose.

  "She alive?" said Cal. Proud of himself for managing the words, for not crying or screaming or puking or any of the thousand other things he wanted to do that weren't asking a coherent question.

  Sue felt Mercedes' throat. She did it quickly. If she'd moved a bit more slowly Cal would have screamed for her to stay away stay away from the other woman's throat.

  Things. Moving things. Under the skin. What does that?

  Does it matter? It's wrong, bad, evil.

  "I think she's alive," said Sue.

  "Let's get her off the deck," said Mr. Raven. Cal was surprised: not only had he utterly forgotten the other man was still there, but this sounded like an uncharacteristically kind move. Then he saw the other man gazing at the peels of skin, red ribbons curling wetly over the deck. "This is very messy. Maybe we can put her with Jimmy J."

  Sue glared at him. "Get on the horn to the Navy," she said.

&
nbsp; Mr. Raven glared right back, though not with anger. More exasperation, like he was a teacher staring down a stunningly stupid pupil. "I told you. They're three days away."

  Sue rose quickly. Stepped into his space and jammed a finger against his breastbone. "That was before people started dying. Before someone went into a coma. Maybe they can send a helicopter or something."

  Mr. Raven looked at the spot off the dive platform where Tim – and probably Haeberle – had disappeared. Cal could see him calculating the probability of taking home whatever the men found.

  It was too much. The gobbets of flesh on his hands, the terror of what he had seen under Mercedes' skin – and now he couldn't even count on the captain of the ship to act in a rational manner.

  "Move your ass!" he screamed. And by heaven if Raven didn't move he'd pound him to a bloody smear right beside the "messy" woman at his feet.

  Raven looked like he was still considering. Cal stepped toward him. He was a big man, stood head-and-shoulders taller than the boat's owner. When he got within arm's reach of the other man, Raven shrunk within himself. Turned.

  Headed up the ladder to call the Navy.

  Cal followed. Because he didn't trust this guy.

  After what he'd just seen, the madness he'd just witnessed, he didn't trust anyone but Sue. Not even himself.

  Did I see that? Really see that?

  But he knew he had. And he suspected that he might see worse. Soon.

  RADIO

  ~^~^~^~^~

  Two thoughts tossed around in Raven's mind. Only two:

  How can I get my treasure?

  How dare that bastard order me around? Me!

  But as often as he turned them in his mind, he failed to come up with satisfactory answers. His only options lay with Haeberle; with the hope that the man come back with something worth all this hassle.

  And that he be willing to finish what needed to be finished.

  Of course, Raven had no intention of permitting that psycho to keep anything he found. He couldn't turn him over to the authorities – he'd talk too much. But surely there would be a moment. An instant when Raven could stab him, or poison him, or just push him overboard and leave him behind.

  But all that went out the window if the Navy showed up too soon.