Hell's Teeth: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Paul Mannering

  “He… he was in the water,” Tyler said. “I think a shark attacked him.”

  “What?” Aroha sat up, almost banging her head against the top bunk. “A shark? Seriously?”

  Tyler nodded. “I think so. I didn’t see it. But there’s sharks all over the place out there. They’re feeding on scraps and stuff from the explosion.”

  “Stuff?” Aroha asked.

  “Yeah…” Tyler didn’t elaborate. “Charlie said that he knew how to get us back to the surface.”

  “How?” Nari and Aroha both leaned forward, faces bright with hope.

  “He didn’t have a chance to explain. He just said there was a way. I’ve been trying to work it out. The top-sphere, it’s fucked, I mean it’s messed up.”

  “Yeah, Charlie tried that already and it’s flooded up there,” Aroha replied.

  “I saw bubbles, there’s air leaking out of the habitat. I can patch any leaks. There’s cold weld patches. Fabric stuff, like a bulletproof vest. We can glue it over holes, fill cracks with epoxy, and try pumping the water out.”

  “That was what Charlie was talking about. He had that stuff with him when he left.” Nari shivered.

  “How did you get down here?” Arthur’s voice cut in.

  “I dunno,” Tyler answered. He tried to shrug, but was wracked with shivering instead.

  “You were in the hardsuit? Did it survive?” Arthur climbed off his bunk and crossed the room. “Where is the hardsuit?”

  “I- It’s outside. It was filling up with water. Charlie got me out and I guess we left it there.”

  Arthur turned and headed out to the dive chamber without further comment.

  “Get warm,” Aroha said. “We’ll get you some food, and once you’ve warmed up, we can work out what to do.”

  *

  Arthur shivered in the chill air of the open dive chamber. The water under the portal was lit by lights in the base of the habitat, and he could see the blurred shape of the armored dive suit lying on its side a tantalizing ten feet away.

  Taking one of the dry suits from the rack, he dressed, double-checking everything as he went. With the weight belt, BCD, and helmet on and secured, he took a careful breath. The mix of oxygen, helium and nitrogen shouldn’t taste like anything, yet Arthur always thought there was a metallic tang to the air.

  On the far wall of the dive chamber, a gantry for a steel rope cable and winch was locked against the wall with a slide-bolt. He freed it and swung the pivot arm out. A chain hung down with a cross bar, and two chains off each end. At the end of those chains were large aluminum hooks, perfect for lifting a heavy object, like a metal dive suit, up into the habitat.

  Arthur pushed the green button on the control switch; the electric engine whirred and the chains vanished into the water. With a testicle-shrinking sense of unease, Arthur climbed down the ladder, through the surface of the water, and into the cold below.

  At the bottom of the ladder, he crouched down, looking in all directions at once, trying to see if any shark was bearing down on him. The water was clear for now, only shadows were dancing to the twitching beam of his halogen lights.

  Satisfied he was safe for now, Arthur took the hooks on the end of their chains and fastened them to the receiving rings on the back of the dive suit’s shoulders.

  His nerve failing, he scuttled back up the ladder. Struggling out onto the deck, he lay there and pulled his helmet off. Arthur panted in irrational terror. You can do this.

  After a minute, he stood up and activated the winch. The engine’s pitch dropped as it took the strain of the load. Slowly, the steel suit rose from the bottom like a marionette. Arthur watched intently as the discarded suit rose into the habitat. Seawater gushed out of the suit, pouring into the portal and turning the surface to foam.

  With the suit in position on the deck, Arthur checked the internal systems. The electronics were secure under waterproof layers for safe operation in any circumstances. While the suit was designed for umbilical air-supply, it could be fitted with Trimix tanks and a respirator valve connector at the back of the helmet.

  The boy had said the suit was leaking. Arthur ran his fingers over the dense rubber and plastic of the articulated joints. A pin-sized hole could be deadly at this depth. The crushing pressure of the water would force its way in and flood the suit.

  Arthur hesitated, and scraped at a spot on the back of the suit’s knee joint. Under his cold fingers, he could feel a small cut in the rubber, less than an inch long; it could be where the water was coming from.

  Charlie had left the bag of patching supplies and epoxy glue on the deck of the dive chamber. Arthur applied a thick smear of the foul-smelling gunk to the paler side of the industrial fabric. Starting at the side, Arthur wrapped the grey strip around the knee of the steel suit like a bandage. Keeping it tight and smoothing it down with one hand, he got a good seal. The knee joint wouldn’t bend without risking tearing the seal, but what Arthur had in mind didn’t require any knee flexing.

  *

  “I’ll go,” Tyler heard his own voice saying the words and couldn’t quite believe it.

  “We don’t even know if it would work,” Aroha said.

  “I’ll go,” Tyler said with more conviction. “I’ll go outside. I’ll check the damage and make any repairs that I can.

  “Be careful,” Aroha said. “The sharks will be snapping up any easy food. You can scare them off by hitting the nose. Try not to thrash around. Move slowly and keep an eye on your surroundings.”

  Tyler nodded. The residue of salt in his throat still burned and made it hard to speak.

  “I’ll give you a hand to suit up,” Aroha said and gave Tyler a smile that made him realize he would swim to the surface for this woman if she asked him to.

  Aroha cranked the steel door to the dive chamber open. Tyler pulled on it and the greased hinges worked silently.

  “Hey!” he yelled. Aroha followed him into the cold room, and the white helmet of the hardsuit was vanishing in a storm of bubbles through the floor.

  “Arthur?” Aroha stared at the rolling water in stunned surprise.

  “He’s fucking nuts!” Tyler yelled. Racing to the controls, he hit the red button and stopped the winch. Under the surface, the wavering shape of the hardsuit thrashed, twisting the winch chains.

  “Bring him back!” Aroha yelled.

  Tyler flicked a switch on the winch control. The direction of the motor now reversed, he pressed the green button and the winch whined as it took the weight of the load.

  The pitch rose and the chains locked tight.

  “Is he stuck?” Tyler asked, peering over the edge of the portal.

  “I think he’s hanging on to one of the base struts?” Aroha couldn’t be sure.

  “Where does he think he is going to go?”

  “He must be trying for the surface.” Tyler’s thumb was pressed white against the control button, as if applying extra pressure might somehow add to the electric winch’s power.

  The cables whined with tension and then whipped through the water as they went slack.

  “Did the cables snap?” Aroha crouched at the water’s edge as the wire lines were wound in.

  “Nah, I think he unhooked them.”

  “Sonnovabitch,” Aroha muttered. Standing up, she turned on the spot, unable to pace in the small chamber. “Okay, so he starts to surface. What happens to him? Can he reach the surface safely?”

  Tyler secured the wire cables out of the way and hung the control box on its hook. “Well, yeah I guess. But, he’s been down here for a while so he’ll need to decompress. That could take a few days. He’ll suffocate before then. The drysuit usually works on umbilical air-supply. If he’s got Trimix tanks on it, then he’s got a few hours max.”

  “That idiot.” Aroha glared at the water.

  “His only chance is if a rescue ship is nearby or he can let off some flares or something to attract attention. Then they need to get him into a decompression chamber, or keep him
supplied with air and slowly reduce the pressure in the suit.”

  “Hang on, weren’t you going to go straight back up?” Aroha folded her arms and regarded Tyler critically.

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t going anywhere near this deep. Also, the atmosphere I was in was pressurized to the surface, so no danger there. And yeah, I wasn’t going to be down long enough to risk the bends.”

  “Fuck,” Aroha said.

  “Yeah.” Tyler nodded, embarrassed to hear the blonde woman cursing.

  “I should go out, see what the damage is.” Tyler went to the rack of drysuits and started working his way into one while Aroha stood by awkwardly unsure of how she could help.

  “Can you zip me up?” Tyler turned and waved at the zipper that ran up his back. Aroha put one hand on his shoulder and pulled it up, then pressed the sealing Velcro flaps over it.

  “Cheers,” Tyler said. A weird tingling on his back where he sensed Aroha’s touch.

  “BCD?” Aroha asked.

  “Weight belt first.” Tyler took the heavy belt with its lead ballast from a hook and clipped it around his waist. “Okay, now the BCD.”

  The scientist lifted the Trimix set, her arms flexing as she held the frame ready for Tyler to slip the straps over his shoulders. A moment later, he straightened up and clipped everything together.

  “All good?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” Tyler felt weird at the attention. He liked girls. He liked them a lot. Aroha was not like the girls he had dated or hooked up with. She was hot and really smart. Older too, but not old like his mom. It made her confusing.

  “Helmet, fins,” Aroha said, handing them to him. Tyler got everything in place and flashed an OK gesture at Aroha.

  “Hey,” she said as he sat down on the edge of the water. Tyler twisted and looked up.

  “Be careful.”

  Tyler nodded, blushing a little under his mask. He took a breath from his respirator and slipped into the water.

  Moving easily, Tyler came out from under the clover-shaped group of spheres. He found the service ladder that curved up the outside and clambered up, the beams from his halogen lights swinging as he looked in all directions at once. A walkway circled the base of the top sphere and he could see a tangle of fallen steel that had slammed into it. Reaching carefully, he pulled himself over the first obstacle: thick steel that had twisted like toffee under the force of the explosion.

  He couldn’t see the white shell of the hard suit anywhere. Arthur was probably out of visual range by now and rising steadily.

  Ahead of Tyler, bubbles streamed out through the wreckage. Somewhere under the tangled mess, a crack in the top sphere was letting air escape. As the pressure changed, water would flow in. If the door between the spheres didn’t hold, the survivors inside would drown in a freezing deluge.

  Climbing up the curve of the habitat sphere, Tyler glanced at his dive computer; he still had time before he was in real danger of running out of air. A primal panic teased at the fringes of his mind. He wanted to run, or swim, for the surface. Find a boat and get the hell out of the water.

  A pale shape emerged from the darkness, the shark’s cartilaginous body flexing as it swam slowly past, the dead black eyes chilling Tyler more than the water pressing in on all sides.

  Remember why you are out here. Stay focused on the job. Tyler tested the weight of the metal debris. Setting his feet, he sank into a squat and heaved upwards. With a dull shriek, a slab of metal twisted away from the broken sphere. Tyler pushed it far enough for gravity to take over and the metal tumbled to the ground, landing with a thud that sent a cloud of silt rising a few feet into the water.

  More than anything, Tyler wanted to be useful, to take something back that would impress Aroha. Finding the source of the leak and fixing it would save everyone.

  He took another look around and then went back to clearing the wreckage.

  CHAPTER 7

  Chatham Rise South Pacific Ocean, Longitude 44° S, Latitude 176° W. 400 meters below the surface.

  Just how he survived the plummeting descent to the bottom was a mystery to Casey. The tumbling chaos of the ship’s interior had sent him crashing along a flooded corridor. He managed to pull himself into a cabin and seal the door against a roaring tempest of escaping air and inrushing water. Now at the bottom, the pressure in the room was equalizing as it flooded.

  Taking a deep breath of the chemical mix of air in his tanks, Casey set his feet and heaved on the twisted slab of metal door. The bottom of the ocean was not like the moon, where everything weighed a lot less. Down here, it was all about water displacement. The volume of things displaced water and the water pushed things up depending on their volume. It was why an airbag could raise a pallet of gold from a sunken wreck. The air pumped into the bag increased its volume and created positive buoyancy.

  The increased buoyancy was as close to being on the moon as Casey would ever get and didn’t mean shit when he was trying to lift metal that weighed as much as he did.

  He swallowed his nausea from the roller coaster ride of his descent. The interior of the ship had turned upside down and anything not bolted down had become a torpedo, more than capable of crushing or impaling him.

  When the door toppled over, Casey had already moved out of the way. Silt and floating debris obscured his view. It would settle in time. Anything edible would be eaten, and the rest would sink the last few feet to the bottom or float away on the endless currents. Algae and deep-sea fish would colonize the wreckage. Until then, anything left was available for Casey to take and use to survive.

  Cracking a chemlight, he twisted through the doorway and brushed the worst of the floating crap aside. The demolition charges had torn through the hull below the water line and allowed the force of the sea to sweep the softer interior with more force than the explosion of fire. He found himself in one of the narrow corridors that ran between the top deck and the bowels of the ship where the engine room and other drive systems took up all the available space.

  Casey moved down the corridor, the water lit with a luminescent green glow from the light stick he had clipped to his BCD. He stopped when he came to a deck plan on the wall. He was on the starboard interior deck. The ship had come down on its left or port side, which made navigation even more confusing. He checked his dive computer, confirming he had plenty of time to find what he needed and get out.

  Tracing a gloved finger along the diagram, he tapped on his target. The room he needed to get to was four doors along from his current position. Pushing off, Casey swam down the corridor he had walked along only that morning. The door opened inwards, and because it was on the downward side of the ship, it fell away as soon as he twisted the handle. The air trapped inside exploded upwards in a cloud of bubbles that hit with enough force to send the diver careening into the opposite wall.

  After recovering his breath and orientation, Casey swam down pulling himself into the radio room and looked around.

  The damage to the communication’s equipment was terminal. Bullet holes had made shiny divots in the metal casings of the radios, allowing saltwater to destroy the delicate electronics inside.

  Porno magazines, floating like stingrays, and a couple of empty gear bags sunken against the opposite wall were the only obvious items left behind.

  Digging through the trash, Casey searched the room for any handheld waterproof radios. The cabinet where they were kept had remained shut during the sinking. Casey pried the catch open and the small cupboard belched a bubble of air.

  A heartbeat later, Casey propelled himself backwards to collide against the opposite wall. The cabinet was empty, except for the red light of an explosive charge blinking in the cold water.

  Casey’s breath exploded through his respirator, his rapid breathing exceeding the volume of the system and leaving him short of breath. He couldn’t see if the counter was going down, or if opening the door had somehow activated the explosive. He twisted and swam to the door. A foam mattress drifting in from t
he corridor blocked his way, and Casey scrambled to push the squishy block aside as unfamiliar panic threatened to choke him.

  Crawling out through the doorway, Casey felt his skin crawl with rising terror. If the charges were powerful enough to tear holes through the steel hull, the detonation could easily kill him.

  With a steady beat of his fins, Casey swam blindly down the corridor towards the door. The amount of crap floating in the water had reduced visibility to near zero. He swam right into the steel frame and recoiled, half-stunned. The door had twisted when the ship went down and was now jammed open with a gap of only a few inches.

  Casey curled his fingers around the door and heaved on it. Fuck. In a few seconds, the interior of the ship would disintegrate and Casey would be another red smear of fish food.

  Twisting around, Casey swept the flashlight over the ceiling. The air vents were no bigger than playing cards. Years of watching James Bond movies didn’t offer any solutions.

  A metallic thud vibrated through the water, the unnatural sound taking Casey by surprise. He pushed away from the wall and put his hand out, feeling the metal in case it happened again.

  The second blow was more insistent and was followed by the deep bass moan of stiff metal creaking as warped hinges turned.

  Casey angled his flashlight at the widening gap in the closed hatch. A length of steel slid into view and the person on the other side levered the jammed door open. Casey didn’t bother waiting for an invitation. He pushed up through the open hatch and collided with the other diver. In her brief expression of surprise, he saw the face of First Mate, Kelly. She swam upwards, trailing in Casey’s wake as he swam away from the wreck and up into the dark water.

  The charge detonated a second later, the shockwave ripping through the water, sending both divers tumbling in a chaotic vortex of swirling debris.

  Casey breathed; the adrenaline of being so close to death again was exhausting. He felt a deep chill in his bones as he wished for nothing more than a hot cup of coffee and a soft bed.