What Lurks Beneath

Another cold, rainy day.

Val lay alone in her bed, looking out the window at the pale light filtering through the cheap vertical blinds. She’d hit snooze three times before shutting off her alarm and going back to sleep for an hour. Will had already left, which meant he had gone to his boxing gym before work.

It was Monday, and it felt like it.

She imagined that she felt the stare of Will’s dog, Bud, boring into the back of her head. For more than a year, he’d sat a few feet from the bed each morning, his short, floppy ears perked up, waiting for her to rise and hoping for a morning run. The dun-colored mutt would wag his tail and push his muzzle into her face, his tongue lapping at her cheek. She would scratch behind his ears, and he’d groan in pleasure. For so long she had wanted a dog again, and they’d really developed a bond in the brief time he’d been in her life.

She finally rolled over, hoping in her half-asleep state that he’d somehow be there again. But he was still gone.

Val sat up and lowered her feet to the cold floor. She threw a sweatshirt on over her tank top and found her slippers, then walked bare-legged down the dim hallway to the kitchen, the dog’s ghost padding silently after her. She smelled coffee, and saw that Will had made a pot. He’d also left her a note on the beige Formica countertop:

She thought, He used to write Love, W.

She hadn’t even seen him last night, since he had come home late from the bar and left again so early. She’d pretended to be asleep as he quietly dressed in the predawn darkness, not wanting to have a conversation with him. What was there to say? She knew he was probably hung over again. Only Will Sturman would stay out late drinking and then rise to go to the gym, even though he wasn’t training for anything. The man was nothing if not tough and headstrong.

At least he’d been honest with her when she’d asked him yesterday if he was headed to watch playoff football again. It’s a bye week, he’d said. Super Bowl’s next weekend. I just need to get out of the apartment.

Months ago, it had become a familiar late-night routine. She’d wake to him bumping noisily about in their kitchen as he made himself an after-binge snack. Then his tall silhouette would fill the door frame as he staggered in, slid into the bed next to her. Never even realizing she was awake in the darkness. When she’d called him on his growing problem, they’d argued. Then he started sleeping on the couch.

She told herself it was out of respect for her, so she could sleep. But she knew he was just withdrawing. Again dwelling on the wife he’d lost, on the loss he now shared with Val, and feeling sorry for himself. As he became what she feared he might.

She had grown up loving a man like this. A man who wasn’t capable of reciprocating her love. She wasn’t going to do it again. Even if he had once saved her life.

She poured herself a mug of coffee, added cream and walked over to the sliding glass door that opened to their balcony. The rain had stopped for the moment, but it was gray outside. Just need to get out of the apartment, he’d said. What he meant was I just need to be alone.

Alone. Or with Maria. But not with her.

Over the green, rolling, chaparral-clad hills in the distance, a red light blinked on a water tower. It was a great view, but she’d planned to move out of this small apartment when Will had first moved up here to be with her. To buy a house. The one-bedroom unit on the outskirts of Marina had simply been a home base for her for four years, when she had always been away doing fieldwork. She’d never intended to spend a lot of time in it, especially if living with a man and a sixty-some pound dog.

She should probably have already gone into the office, but she’d worked on Saturday evening so her boss, Rob Carman, wouldn’t care if she came in late. What could he say, anyway? They both knew she had paid her dues at PLARG over the years.

There had been a time when all she had wanted to do was work. When she had been so inspired. What had happened to her, anyway?

Will had happened. They had happened. And now they weren’t happening anymore. She wasn’t meant for relationships. She would never be able to carry a child, as she knew painfully well, and it looked like her best prospect for marriage was an alcoholic. Maybe she should just become single again, and remain that way forever.

Looking at the gray outside, she told herself that maybe the sun would come out, but she knew it probably wouldn’t. She sighed and turned away from the window to look for her laptop. She would work from home until she felt enough motivation to shower and head into the lab. There wasn’t much to do today, anyway. She’d just need to clean out the tanks to prepare them for another round of (doomed) squid. And if she didn’t, it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. They weren’t likely to have more live specimens turn up for a few weeks or longer.

She brought her laptop to the couch and sat cross-legged on it, resting the computer on her knees. She fired it up and opened her Web browser. She accessed her Outlook e-mail account. A hundred and twenty-one unread messages. She sighed. She should at least get through her overflowing inbox today.

She began scrolling down the page to look for anything urgent. Mostly, the e-mails were just FYIs from colleagues, junk mail, and administrative notifications. She paused on an e-mail from rford@nes.org, received late last night: Richard Ford, from the National Exploration Society. NES had featured her work in a past issue of its monthly, photo-laden magazine, and had partially funded one of her earlier projects through a foundation grant. She opened the e-mail:

How are you? Been a long time.

I don’t know if you recall, but I’ve been working on a project in the Bahamas. Mapping blue holes on some of the islands, with a focus on Andros, where I just left a few days ago. But there was an accident. We just halted ops.

I don’t recall you being a cave diver, so I’m hoping you don’t know many in that close-knit community. You might have already heard, but we lost two of our best last week. They never surfaced, and are presumed dead. Operations are now postponed indefinitely.

Their names were John Breck and Arlo Pelletier, the latter a researcher from France. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news if you did know either man.

Pelletier’s name sounded familiar—some biologist—but Val knew neither man personally. Her uncle, Mack, might know these men though. He used to be one of the best cave divers this side of the Atlantic. She continued reading the e-mail:

The main reason I’m e-mailing you is that we did find a camera John had been using. I thought you’d want to see one of the images that turned up on the device—the last one taken. We still can’t figure out what it is, but it looks a hell of a lot like something you’d be familiar with.

See the attached, and let me know what you think. You can call me to discuss.

Val double-clicked the attachment icon to open a new window. On her screen popped up a blurry, dark image. She scanned the digital photo. Much of it was dim, almost black. But not all of it. Val stopped breathing.

On the upper right quadrant was the obvious reason why Ford had sent her an e-mail. Nearly obscured by the dim was a blurred, curved object covered in a field of small, white circles.