Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala

by Rick Hautala

  Jeff jerked back when he swung his flashlight around to illuminate the man’s face. He told himself it had to be a trick of the light and shadow … or the way the man’s head was moving ever so slightly in the deep currents … or … or something. Whatever it was, Jeff was convinced that as he moved, so, too, the dead man’s eyes had moved as though he was tracking him with a dull, blank stare.

  Wes had swum away from the body and was leaning over, inspecting the cement block tied to one end of the chain. It was sunk deep in the sand and draped with seaweed and slime. As he lifted the chain and shook it, the dull clanking sounds the links made were transmitted through the water. Jeff glanced at his diving partner but then couldn’t help but look back at the drowned man.

  His dread was steadily winding up into a feeling of outright fear bordering on panic. He reminded himself that losing focus underwater was always dangerous. He had to get his shit together—and fast—or else both he and Wes could end up in some real trouble. It didn’t help to remind himself that he had a simple job to do. All he had to do was release this drowned man from the chain holding him down and bring him up to the surface. Let the authorities handle it from there. He had done this too many times to count, but never … never he had experienced such feelings as he was having now.

  He was still desperate to talk to Wes if only to calm his own irrational fears. Should he motion to his partner that they should surface so they could plan their next steps?

  Jeff knew that would be foolish.

  This was a simple dive and recovery. Nothing more. Wes and everyone onboard the Coast Guard boat would think he was losing his nerve.

  He had to get a grip on himself—now!

  Wes had his back to the corpse as he worked the chain, trying to release it from the cement block. The dead man’s arms were still extended, waving gently from side to side in the tidal surge, but it looked for all the world like he was straining forward against his restraints, reaching out to catch hold of Wes from behind while his back was turned.

  Jesus, stop it! Jeff cautioned himself.

  He should have been helping Wes loosen up the chain, not hanging back like this, letting his imagination get carried away with such foolish fears. Once that end of the chain was free, it would be a simple matter to unwind it from around the corpse’s waist and then, slowly, very carefully, bring him up to the surface. After this long underwater, he had to be so rotten he might fall apart..

  It’s easy … a simple, clean job even a rookie could do blindfolded, Jeff told himself.

  He was ashamed that—for whatever reason—he was allowing his fear to take such firm hold of him. With a new determination, he moved over to Wes who had just about finished working the chain free. With Jeff’s help, it was only a matter of a few more seconds before they finished untying the cement block.

  While they worked together, though, Jeff wasn’t able to shake the feeling that any time their backs were turned to the corpse, the dead man was staring at them, watching them … studying their every move.

  And Jeff couldn’t stop wondering if the drowned man, whoever he was—whether he was Old Man Crowther or some other luckless fool who had decided to end it all because of a broken heart or trouble with the IRS—might be angry at them for disturbing his final resting place. The chain and cement block certainly indicated how much he wanted to stay down here on the bottom of the ocean.

  What Pappy had told him last night about the strange plague that had afflicted the town years ago came back to Jeff. He wondered if it was possible that this man had been infected by—whatever the disease was—and had drowned himself to end it all … for himself and, possibly, for his family and the entire town.

  Like a mummy’s curse, Jeff thought, surprised the thought occurred to him, some things are best left undisturbed.

  But he couldn’t leave now, not once the state was involved.

  He never should have told anyone—not even Biz—about what he had found.

  He should have left well enough alone.

  If he hadn’t been so startled and—yes, maybe even a bit scared yesterday, he might have thought it through and kept his goddamned mouth shut.

  But now, no matter what else happened, he and Wes had to bring this guy back to the surface so the Maine State Medical Examiner could determine how he had died.

  Drowning, Jeff thought with a grim smile. P. F. O. … pretty fucking obvious.

  With apprehension winding up in his gut like a coiled steel spring, Jeff turned back to the victim’s body. Wes approached it as if there was nothing unusual going on here, but Jeff was hanging back, determined to be cautious.

  When Wes came up close to the drowned man, his upraised arms swung around to the left side … toward him. They moved like dual needles of a compass being drawn to true North. Wes seemed not to notice. He was bending down, unwinding the length of chain from around the corpse’s waist. Silt swirled in thick clouds, mixing with the bubbles coming from his respirator. The heavy chain clinked faintly as the links, long rusted into place, shifted free. Jeff could see that Wes was struggling with it, but he didn’t move to help.

  He couldn’t.

  The beam of his flashlight was trained on the dead man’s face, and he was gazing steadily into the drowned man’s eyes.

  They were moving.

  They jerked spastically from side to side, glaring with a cold, glassy stare that was fixed on the back of Wes’ bowed head.

  “Look out!” Jeff yelled, but all that came out was an explosion of bubbles that spewed from around his regulator.

  As the corpse’s hands reached out and grabbed Wes by the back of the neck, hooked fingers dug like hawk’s talons into Wes’ shoulders. They dimpled the material of his drysuit for a second or two and then raked down, ripping into it.

  Wes reacted instantly, but Jeff knew it was already too late.

  The yellowed fingernails swept across Wes’ back like a scythe, shredding the drysuit and cutting it into ragged black ribbons. Red billows of blood spewed forth, looking like the sudden eruption of an underwater volcano. Wes started thrashing around, flipping over as he tried to get away from whatever had attacked him..

  What does he think, Jeff wondered, that a shark hit him?

  Wes waved his hands over his shoulders as if to beat away his attacker, but he couldn’t break free of the dead man’s grasping hands. Sharp, yellow fingernails slashed across Wes’s face, sweeping away his diver’s mask and regulator. A blast of bubbles exploded from Wes’ mouth and nose, and Jeff could faintly hear the terrified screams. With another sweep of the dead man’s hands, Wes’ face was transformed into a tangle of shredded pink strips of meat and exposed bone. Dark blood oozed from the open wounds in thick, spiraling red ribbons that dissolved in the violent current.

  Finally finding his courage, Jeff propelled himself forward, making sure to keep a safe distance between himself and the dead man. He grabbed Wes around the waist and yanked him out of the thing’s grasp. The bubbles of escaping air mixed with swirling silt and clouds of blood, making it all but impossible for Jeff to see, but he knew which way was up. Without air, he knew he had to get Wes up to the surface as fast and as safely as he could.

  Otherwise, he would die.

  They would both die.

  Struggling to contain his panic, Jeff clasped Wes to his chest and started swimming up. He barely noticed it when something caught hold of his left leg and held it. It held him for only a second or two, but when he pulled away, a stinging sensation like a series of bee stings shot across his left calf muscle. He ignored it as he swam toward the surface, holding Wes’s limp body close to him.

  It took extreme effort not to rise to the surface too fast. There was no sense risking either him or Wes getting the bends. Taking the regulator from his mouth, he forced it into Wes’ mouth, but Wes was either unconscious or already dead. His motionless lips were as pale as snow. His eyes were glazed with a dull, milky stare.

  The swim to the surface felt like it woul
d last forever, but the water gradually lightened, and before long, shimmering blue sky and a burning dot of sunlight sparkled above. Looking up, he saw the dark, hulking wedge of the underside of the Coast Guard boat a short distance away and started making his way toward it. When his head broke the surface, he let out a roar as he inhaled a lungful of fresh air. It took a near superhuman effort to swim over to the side of the boat and land on the diving platform. Several crewmen scurried down to help him get Wes onboard.

  “What the fuck?” the captain shouted as Jeff heaved himself up out of the water and climbed over the gunwales and onto the deck. Several crewmen were already tending to Wes, but Jeff was already accepting that the worst had happened.

  “You guys run into a shark down there?” one of the crewmen asked.

  “Jesus!” another crewman said. “Looks like someone went at him with a chainsaw.”

  Kneeling down on the deck, Jeff and the men rolled Wes over onto his back. Blood was flowing from the wounds on his neck and face, dripping in large splashes onto the deck.

  The captain went back to the cabin and started the engine, revving it. Within seconds, the cutter was speeding across the water, heading back to harbor. Looking down at Wes’s pale, motionless body, Jeff shivered and shook his head.

  “No need to hurry,” he said to Mark Curtis, who was still kneeling beside Wes’ motionless form. “He’s gone.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Curtis said, lowering his gaze and shaking his head from side to side. Then he turned to Jeff and pointed at Jeff’s left leg.

  Jeff looked down and, through the gap in his drysuit, saw the flap of water-puckered skin. It was already an angry red from infection. Blood ran in a thick, single stream down to his ankle and onto the deck.

  “Looks like you got cut up, too,” Curtis said, frowning as he looked at Jeff’s wound. “What the fuck happened down there?”

  Shock hit Jeff when a cold, deep sting reached deep into him, striking all the way to the bone. Within seconds, the coldness radiated up his leg and into his groin and chest until it started to squeeze his heart. His hands and feet were already growing numb.

  Jeff stared blankly at the wound, barely aware as Curtis knelt down beside him and inspected it more closely.

  “Jesus,” Curtis said. “Let’s get some antiseptic on that and bandage it up. You don’t want it getting infected.”

  “Infected,” Jeff said, his voice nothing but an empty echo.

  “Yeah. Infection. That’s a helluva gash you got there. We should get you to the hospital and have someone throw a few stitches into that to close it up.”

  Jeff was shaking his head from side to side as a terrible, sad knowledge filled him.

  “It’s already too late,” he said in a whisper as the dull, cold heaviness spread through his body.

  “Say what? “

  “It’s already too late,” Jeff said again, louder this time.

  “What do you mean?” Curtis asked. “It ain’t nothing but a scratch.”

  But Jeff lowered his head and stared at the blood running in a ruby red stream down the slick black surface of his drysuit. Already, it felt like his guts were filled with a dreadful cold that was already eating him from the inside out. His vision started to get cloudy, and the buzzing of the boat’s engine was suddenly unbearably loud.

  “It’s the plague,” Jeff said in a low, hollow tone. “It’s come back … We … I brought it back!”

  As the boat sped back to the dock, he gazed across the vast expanse of blue water at the rapidly approaching town. The steeple of the Congregation Church stood out like a white spike against the sky. Houses clustered in the downtown area and radiated from the town. The scene was gorgeous—picture postcard perfect.

  But looking at it, Jeff felt an immense sadness fill him and weigh him down. His body was dying. He could feel it, but worse than that, he was tormented by a single, burning question:

  Will I have the courage to do what Old Man Crowther did?

  Because he wondered, when the time came … and it sure as shit seemed to be here now … would he have the balls to do what was necessary to protect the town … maybe the entire state and even country, if this infection spread?

  As soon as the boat got back to the dock, he had already decided that he wouldn’t go to the hospital. He was going to have to find a hefty cement block and a good length of chain …

  And then, he was going to grab his boat and head right back out to sea.

  The End

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