Deeper

About an hour later I woke up to a headache that was trying its best to crack my skull. I could feel the pressure in my head beating to a different tempo than my pulse, and it hurt like hell. I was in my cabin and my clothes were dry, but my hair was damp. It took me only a second or two to remember all of the details of what had happened and that was enough to get me up and moving. My eyes burned and my balance was off when I stood up.

“Those fish things took Belle.” I put my hand on the edge of the bed and steadied myself. Seemed it wasn’t just my sense of balance that was out of whack, so was the whole yacht. I understood why when the lightning flashed outside of the window and I had a chance to see how turbulent the ocean was around us. Anything smaller than the vessel we were in would have probably been thrown into the reef or just knocked over by the waves. I was lucky enough to have a good crew and they were smart enough to know how to keep a boat facing the waves and cutting through them instead of letting us get thrown over by the first big one that came along.

There comes a point in a storm where you’re better off not trying to reach land and judging by what was going on outside, I guessed we’d reached it. The cove wasn’t the roughest waters I’d ever been in, but it was close. One miscalculation when you’re in the wrong area and a sixty-foot yacht becomes toothpicks. Put another way, if you’re heading for the docks and a wave catches you the wrong way on a turbulent sea, you might well ram the concrete moorings and break apart on impact. I hated that we were stuck out in the waters, but even worried about Belle, I knew the Isabella was in a bad situation.

“It started around the same time we got out of the water. Hit all at once and wasn’t playing any games.” He shook his head. “Joe, there was no way I was going to leave you down there.”

“It was . . . It was talking to me.” Charlie looked embarrassed, and he was doing his best to look like he believed me, but it wasn’t working out very well. “Charlie, it told me I need to give back the fish man or Belle is dead.”

“I don’t know, damn it!” Charlie flinched a little. I wish I could say I felt bad about that, but my mind was on one goal. “But I know what it said and I know that if I want Belle back in one piece that fish thing has to be set free.”

“Belle is missing because you caught one of those things, Charlie. Not your fault. I’d have done the same thing I guess, but now that it’s gone wrong, I need to get my wife back.” I stood up and steadied myself against the rocking of the boat and the spinning pressure between my ears.

Charlie shook his head. “You’re right, of course, Joe. Of course we’re gonna do anything we can to get her back.” He held out placating hands. “I just opened my mouth and it came out.”

“Don’t apologize to me, Charlie. Just get me to Ward or Ward to me so we can talk this over.” Charlie nodded and then left my cabin. As soon as he did, I sat back down on the bed and waited for my legs to feel like they could hold me. I ached all over and most of the muscles in my body were protesting the abuse I’d given them.

I didn’t even notice the bandages on my chest until I went to scratch at the persistent itch I’d been ignoring. I looked under my shirt and saw a layer of gauze with white medical tape. I had no idea who’d worked on me, but they’d done an excellent job based on the outside of the package.

Another wave slapped against the side of the Isabella and staggered me. If I’d been standing up, I’d have kissed the deck. Instead, I just fell on my side and let out a groan. I got off the bed and headed for the main deck. I couldn’t sit still: there was too much going on in my head. Mind you, walking was a bit of a challenge, too, with the way the waves were knocking us around. The main cabin was filled with more people than I’d expected to see. Of course the college kids were all there because they couldn’t very well go back down in this storm. It had nothing to do with the waters near the cave, those were deep enough to avoid any real impact from the waves. It had to do with getting away from the Isabella without getting smashed by the yacht.

Most of them were looking a little green around the edges. Seasickness, most likely. It’s one thing to dive and another to deal with the constant motion of a violent sea. I walked over to the medical supplies without even thinking about it and laid out two packages of Dramamine. Several faces made grateful expressions as they reached for the stuff.

“I didn’t say you can’t have the Deep One back. I said it was a shame to have to let it go.” Ward saw me coming and his tone changed from angry to conciliatory. I could see that both Jacob and Charlie were taken aback by the sudden change in tone. Charlie glanced in my direction and I saw understanding move over his features.

Jacob took advantage of his friend’s change of demeanor and jumped on it like a predator at the first sign of weakness. “Glad to see you coming around, Martin. We can try again for one of the Deep Ones if you like, but I think the important thing to remember here is that we’re dealing with sentient creatures. They can speak and reason and as we’ve just unfortunately learned, they can retaliate.” Even as he spoke he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tossed it to me. I was definitely going to have to buy him a carton or two.

All three men looked at me, and I knew they were waiting to see how I would respond to Ward’s sudden offer of sacrifice. I knew how much his fish man meant to him. I understood the scientific significance it offered to the world at large. I knew that the doctor would be able to write his own checks when it came to future research. I nodded my thanks and headed past them and into the hold of the yacht.

There was something I had to find that would make this whole thing much easier for the doctor to swallow. I’ve been in business for a long time and I know just about every trick there is to catching big fish. Some of them aren’t very sporting but they’re not always illegal. If a rich man wants to cheat to catch a bluefish, who am I to stop him? It’s his money and his vacation. I won’t let anyone blatantly break the law on my yacht, but a little leeway is a plus if you ever want to have repeat business.

One of my regular clients every year was a man named Oliver Townsby. I have no idea what he does for a living and I don’t care. What I cared about right then was that the oversized, middle-aged man who liked to date girls who were barely out of high school was a guarantee of two weeks’ worth of work, that he tipped handsomely, and that half the time he left behind whatever gadgets he’d brought with him. I left them on the Isabella for two reasons: first, you never know when you might have a use for some of the gadgets; and, second, the man had a mind that was unbelievably sharp and had, from time to time, brought up the stuff he’d left behind. It was like he was testing me to see if I was honest. I was, and the end result one year was a five-hundred-dollar tip when I gave him back a fifty-dollar piece of electronic junk he swore worked to increase his fish haul.

I pushed past a few boxes worth of leftovers from fishing trips gone by and finally found what I was looking for after finishing off the first of my cigarettes. The whole thing was awkward as hell, but only because it was still in the box. I think Townsby used it once and then decided it was too much of a waste of time with all the dials and knobs.

They were still talking when I came back out and all three men looked at me as I carried out the box. Charlie chuckled and Jacob looked puzzled. Ward looked unimpressed until he read the fine print.

The wonders of modern technology never cease to amuse me. Townsby had spent a fortune on the thing in my arms and couldn’t have cared less after it started to bore him. Ward looked at it like it was the Holy Grail of fishermen’s tools and actually smiled for the first time in days. That didn’t make me like him any more, but it stopped me from wanting to hurt him.

It was a global positioning tracker, state of the art two years ago and still a couple of thousand dollars on the market. The GPS unit wasn’t what made it special. What made it something to notice was the fact that it was designed specifically for tracking larger fish in the water. Good up to fifteen atmospheres according to the box and with an effective range of two hundred miles. The transmitter was supposed to be delivered with a dart from a speargun. Just to make sure no one got it wrong they even included the gas-powered device that was half the size of the ones on the Isabella. I opened the case and showed Ward the specifics. He picked up on it quickly enough.

“When we get back to the docks, all you have to do is stick that thing in the back and let it go. You’ll get to keep track of your frog man. I’ll get my wife back in one piece.”

Now all I had to do was wait out the storm, which by the way the Isabella was rocking, seemed to be getting worse. Either that, or Davey was doing a crappy job of facing into the waves. I went to see how he was doing while Ward and Charlie discussed the best way to set the whole thing into action.

Davey wasn’t on the bridge. He should have been. The door was open and the rain was spilling across the deck, sloshing back and forth with the surge of the waves. The radio was on, the sonar was going, and everything was where it should have been, except for Davey.

Like I needed any more complications. Maybe he’d gone to the head and forgotten to mention it to anyone. I didn’t want to panic until I knew there was a reason to get worried. So I walked onto the bridge instead and went to see what was going on.

The sonar was completely clear and I froze as soon as I noticed that. The sonar shouldn’t have been clear, you see. What it should have been was very busily pointing out that the Devil’s Reef was less than three hundred feet away on the right. It should also, maybe, have been letting us know that Golden Cove was off to the left and behind us.

I checked the readings twice, made absolutely sure that there was no mistake, and then I started panicking. Who knew how long we’d been away from where we were supposed to be? I had no clue. I only knew that we were adrift, and at least a mile or so away from where we had been anchored.

Davey was missing and we were out in the middle of the ocean in one hell of a storm. And while the fish man hadn’t given me a time limit for getting his friend back to him, I didn’t like Belle’s odds if I couldn’t get her away from the underwater demons sometime in the very near future.

I couldn’t change much about what was happening until after the storm finished with us. The only good thing I had going for me was that the sonar wasn’t warning me about a really big rock, or maybe an oil tanker, that would break the Isabella into kindling. I took a look at the surrounding waters and then I got busy with a little creative steering. The waves were just as fearsome as I was afraid they’d be and it took a lot of concentration to maneuver the yacht through the worst of them.

I guess a few of the passengers must have started getting a little worried because Charlie came along and checked to see what was up. Nothing good was the answer and after a few minutes spent explaining everything, he went off to find Davey.

It wasn’t looking good. I probably already said that, but it bears repeating. Time sort of played with my head for a while. I didn’t have the energy to focus on anything but steering the Isabella through the storm. I know that Charlie told me Davey wasn’t on board, but I couldn’t afford to leave the ship floundering and go looking for him. I was far too busy trying to outsmart the waves that seemed to want me dead.

Did I do well? My only answer to that: I’m here now and writing this. The Isabella took a beating, but aside from Davey, no one was lost during that storm. We took on water, but there are pumps designed to take care of that sort of problem and they worked. We had a few pieces of furniture go sliding, but none of the big stuff and the worst that happened was one of the college kids got a bruise on his shin from a runaway chair.

On the other hand, Davey was missing. Our Davey, my Davey; the kid I’d taken on because he loved the sea and was good with machines. The sun was gone, lost behind the clouds and I was nowhere near Golden Cove as far as I could tell.

First thing you learn when it comes to sailing or working a boat is to know where you are. I’d gotten cocky. I hadn’t actually bothered to check longitude and latitude when I took us to Golden Cove. I’d eyeballed it. So it took a while to figure out where we were. We’d been washed around four miles off course. Happily, there weren’t any other reefs hiding just under the water to break the Isabella in half.

I tried to radio the Coast Guard and got no response. It had been a bad storm and there was always the chance the transmitter had been knocked off. In the dark there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that, so we were on our own. What, because I needed more reasons for the tightness in my chest and the pain in the pit of my stomach? I was having trouble catching a decent breath, and I knew why. There’s only so much you can take at one time and I was fast approaching my personal limit. The idea was to make myself look calm for everyone else.

It’s easier to get dragged out to sea with an anchor in the water than you might think. Anchors only work as long as they stay stuck to the bottom of the seabed, and in the case of Golden Cove, the land drops away very abruptly. As I understand it, and I have to be honest and say I haven’t really examined the notion too carefully, the Devil’s Reef is right at the edge of the continental shelf. So it wasn’t very hard to get lifted up by a big wave and suddenly discover that the bottom had literally dropped out from under the Isabella.

The end result was a long stretch of ocean where a person could have fallen from the boat and wound up damned near anywhere. It wasn’t a soothing thought. I’d lost my wife only a few hours earlier and now Davey. Much as I wanted to find Belle, I felt obligated to take it slowly on the way back to the cove. Not that it did any good. I looked, and so did everyone else on board. We searched carefully, using the spotlights that adorned the yacht. There was nothing to see but water. The storm was gone and the ocean was almost as calm as glass, as if recovering from the rough workout brought on by the earlier weather.

The water was calm. I was not. What I wanted to do was speed like a madman and find Belle. No one else mattered as much to me, not even poor Davey. Belle wouldn’t have agreed, and I made myself think like she would.

We may as well have been combing a beach for one particular grain of sand. The waters were still, and anything that had been floating would have been spotted with ease, but that changed quickly when the fog started up. Have you ever really looked at fog? Not the low-lying stuff you see on the road now and then, but the pea soup stuff that comes from the ocean. It’s almost alive with the way it moves. This was like a serious pea soup. It didn’t drift down from the skies and it didn’t blow in from anywhere. It just erupted from the waters around us.

Fog does not, for the record, erupt. But this one did. It came on heavy and grew until the spotlights were useless. All they could illuminate was the swirling cloud of vapor that danced around us.

I must have had a stupid look on my face, one that showed I had no idea what he was talking about. I was worried about Belle and Davey. The Parsonses getting excited meant nothing to me.

“Well that’s fucking perfect, Charlie! That’s just exactly what I need from you right now!” I knew there’d be no help from him. That didn’t stop me from taking out a little of the pressure I was feeling. I saw the look of hurt on his face and I knew I was countering it with an expression of pure disgust.

“Go on, Charlie,” I finally relented. I watched him head to his cabin. The man had wrestled a monster out of the water and grinned all the way through it. He’d taken the same monster on with his fists alone when it was ready to tear me in half. Yet the thought of a dead person looking at him from the side of a ghost ship freaked him out completely. I didn’t try to understand it; I just accepted it. We all have things that scare us, right?

I left the yacht to steer itself for a few minutes and headed out to see what was happening in the fog. The ship was the same one we’d seen before, or at least it looked the same to me. I couldn’t make out all that many details.

But I could see the shadows on board. I could feel them looking at the Isabella. And damned if I didn’t look back, trying to see if there were any new crew members on board that shadowy galleon.

The college kids and everyone else forgot the search for Davey. All around me the people were looking at the spectral vessel that waited only a few hundred feet away. I looked as closely as I could, hating that the faces of the people on that ship were shadows. There was a part of me, damn it all, that wanted to see their faces, that wanted to know that neither Belle, nor Tommy nor Davey was on that boat full of dead people. I was just reaching for the spotlight when I saw a form dive from the clipper and drop into the water.

Whoever it was that dropped down hit the calm seas with a tiny splash, and then started swimming toward the Isabella. I watched the shape heading for the yacht, wondering if this was a real person coming to visit or if this was, like the girl we’d pulled from the water on the first night, an apparition.

It only took a second to get to the spotlight and aim it at the figure. Whoever it was had dark hair and was dressed in some form of jacket. Beyond that I had no idea who I was looking at.

Finally, after several moments of watching the stranger swimming over, he made it to the edge of the yacht. I looked down at him and he looked back up. I’d never seen the man before. My heart sank a bit when I realized that. It shouldn’t have; it was a good sign maybe. But he was just a man, dead or alive, and he couldn’t answer my questions. Without asking, he climbed the ladder on the side and made his way to the deck of the Isabella. I don’t know all the fancy terms that go along with older fashions. I just know the clothes he was wearing were a few hundred years out of date.

The man stared around with a quizzical look on his face and his gaze cut right through me. As he looked, his face grew angrier. He was shorter than me and I don’t think he was being rude. I don’t think he saw me for whatever reason.

“What is the meaning of this insanity?” The man spoke clearly to the wall of the cabin, his face outraged. “I’ll not have you attacking my vessels, or threatening to sink my ship from below me.”

I have no idea what was said in response, but his look of outrage grew much, much stronger. I watched him as he was suddenly grabbed by forces unseen and spun back to face his ship where it floated. As I looked away from him, for just an instant I could almost make out the shapes of other men holding him, but when I looked back, they were gone.

He froze for a moment, looking out at the galleon in the distance. Then he struggled harder, screaming in protest even as his head was wrenched back and he was forced to watch what happened.

From out of the waters they came, a swarm of the fish men, flowing up the side of the ghost ship in a fury of motion, claws catching the timbers and ripping them away from the ship even as the Deep Ones rose higher. Like the ship and its passengers, the shapes were vague and shadowed, more a hint of a form than an actual image, but there was enough to see, enough to let me know that what attacked was not human.

I stood and watched. I couldn’t look away from the sight as the things attacked, but I have to be honest and say the fates of the people on the other ship meant nothing to me. Maybe it was because I knew in my heart that they were already dead and all I was seeing was a memory. I think it was more that I kept thinking of Belle in the hands of those vile things and it crushed a part of me.

Even as vague lumps, they were distinguishable enough to horrify me, not only because of their shapes, but also because of the sheer number of them. There weren’t dozens or hundreds, but what seemed like thousands of the things coming from the water and peeling away parts of the ship that they hurled into the water behind them. I saw a documentary on piranha that showed them tearing a cow into confetti inside of a minute. The same thing happened to the nameless ship out there. The people were grabbed and pulled into the water by the creatures surrounding them and the boat was disassembled in a frenzy of activity.

All the while the ghost man on my yacht screamed and struggled against the figures that had done him in sometime in the distant past, and the students on board watched the events as they were revealed to us. They screamed as they were taken down. The people all screamed and struggled and died. I felt my skin goose pimple up as I listened to them and to the croaking calls of their destroyers.

For the first time, the ghost being held captive on my yacht by other ghosts who could not be seen, turned and looked me directly in the eyes. “They’ll never give her back to you. She’s as good as dead, or possibly worse. You will not win this.”

“Fuck you!” The words were out before I could even think of stopping them. I didn’t want to hear what he said. I never wanted to hear it, because there was a part of me that thought he was right. I would never see Belle again. Not alive, anyway.

I started the yacht forward and heard Jacob protesting. This was what he was out here for, to witness the ghosts of Golden Cove. I didn’t care. My wife was missing and I’d waited too long already to do something about it. If Davey was dead and gone, then I would mourn him later, but whatever slim chance I had of getting Belle back alive was waiting somewhere on the shore and needed to be set free.

The ghost escaped his captors, or maybe they were never there. Maybe they were just memories in a dead man’s head and he used them to show me what happened to his ship and crew. Whatever the case, he was in the cabin as I sped us toward the distant cove.

“She’s theirs now, and whatever you do to help her will only bring you damnation.” His face, faintly transparent now, clear enough that I could see the window behind him, showed nothing but misery. “We stay here to warn others, sir. We stay here to keep others safe.”

“You go to hell! She’s my wife and I’ll have her back!” I was screaming at a ghost. I think if I could have I’d have hit him then, just to make him stop telling me my worst fears had already come true.

“I am in hell already, sir.” He lowered his head and faded away like a bad dream. I ignored him as best I could and gunned the engine of the Isabella, cutting across the water like a maniac until I came close to the docks. Once there, I behaved myself because I had to, and I docked as carefully as ever.

He nodded and said nothing. I let him lead the way. Golden Cove was dark and wet and colder than I’d expected. The fog that had rolled over the sea had taken home on the streets, turning everything into shadows as vague as the ones on the ghost ship. I tried not to look too closely into the darkness. Every time I did, I saw Belle’s face. Not alive and warm and loving, but cold and dead with unseeing eyes staring at me accusingly.

Ward was panting and staggered a bit as he hurried up the steep hillside and headed for the building where the Deep One was being kept. “Not much farther, Captain. We’re almost there.”

I nodded in response, carrying the tracking device and looking at the wicked barb that had to be put into the monster’s hide before he could be let free. I told myself I was doing it for Ward, but in truth I think I wanted to know where they really lived. I wanted to know where they might have taken Belle.

When we finally reached our destination the yacht and docks below were almost half a mile away. I wondered how they’d gotten the damned thing so far away from the shore without ever being seen.

I saw the body of Diana’s brother, Jan, where he lay on the ground, his head twisted hard enough to let his chin dangle toward his lower back. His leg was still wrapped in bandages, but the rest of him was covered only in shorts and a T-shirt that had been soaked in blood. Judging by the wounds across his arms and chest, I had to guess the blood was his.

Five other people were in the room, all of them just as torn and bloodied. What little furniture the place held—an examination table, complete with straps to hold down the examinee and a few chairs as well as video equipment—was tossed around, scattered and broken by whatever had been in the room with them.

Well, all I could think about was Belle. Sound a little obsessive? I was. I looked at the bodies scattered around the room, saw the condition they were in, and all I could think of was that the fish man’s disappearance basically screwed Belle’s chances of surviving.

Ward was staggering around like a drunk, touching every one of the bodies. I knew what he was doing. He was making sure they were dead. If they were injured, they could be saved. I watched him and felt my knees go weak, rendering me useless.

“Call nine-one-one!” Ward’s voice snapped me out of my daze and I looked at him. I knew he’d said something, but it wasn’t really registering right then. “Call for an ambulance! Do you hear me?”

Oh yes, we should have checked the building out. The fish man might have gotten free, but he had not made it out of the building. He looked at Ward and he looked at me and then he charged, trying to get through the bodies and furniture and then to the door behind me.

The thing was graceful in the water. I knew it had to be, after seeing its relatives swimming. It was nowhere near as dexterous on land. That was the good news. The bad news was it made up for being clumsy by being as strong as a horse.

It let out a croaking roar, and swatted a chair out of the way with enough force to break the frame. Its foot came down on top of a man I’d never seen, who I guessed was a biologist that Ward had hired to look the monster over. The man grunted and twitched as the claws sank into his leg. I heard the knee on that leg popping under the pressure as the fish man pushed itself forward.

Ward had just enough time to look at it and let out a scream before it slapped him across the face with one of its oversized hands. The claws on that enormous paw cut into his hairline. They probably would have ripped his face open if he hadn’t flinched. As it was he let out a loud shriek and fell to his knees as the blood started flowing.

The thing ignored him and came for me, determined to get out of the building. I saw the recognition in its bulging eyes, and in the way it tilted its head. We knew each other, and I think maybe we even had a grudging respect for each other. But under that, beneath whatever acknowledgments of strength, there was a deep hatred: I’d wounded it and threatened it. In turn, it was responsible for Belle’s disappearance. I stood my ground. Not because I wanted to get ripped in half, but because he was only going to get away after I’d made a few things clear.

Remember what I said about the fish man not being so graceful on land? Well, graceful and fast aren’t the same thing. He came on like a freight train and I guess I was supposed to be the poor damsel tied to the tracks.

The good news for me was I wasn’t actually tied down. I snapped out of my paralysis and moved as the thing came closer. It took a swipe at me and I ducked it, falling on my ass and breaking the end table under my dropping weight. A hot pain burrowed into my hip where I’d hit, and I rolled over onto my knees as quickly as I could. The fish man had almost made it to the open door and I reached out and grabbed its ankle. When it turned to look at what was holding it back, I pulled up and back as hard as I could and dropped the damned thing into the ground, face-first.

It let out another scream of rage and reached for my face. I pulled on its leg and crawled backward, just managing to miss having my nose ripped off. Adrenaline kicked into my system and gave me false strength. The claw flashed across the very tip and I felt the blood fall at the same time that I closed my eyes against the sudden tearing the strike caused.

The fish man grabbed at my face and caught it in those freakish hands. I felt the claws slipping through my hair and fully expected to have my scalp peeled away for my mistake. I let out a sound that had nothing to do with rage or bravery and everything to do with desperation and fear.

The damned thing communicated again. Showing me images of how badly I would suffer. They weren’t pretty. I didn’t know how it talked with its mind and I didn’t have a clue if it could hear my thoughts, but I tried to make them clear. I wanted Belle back. If I got her alive and intact, I would forgive everything and make sure that the expedition left the area. If I did not . . . I pushed hard with those images, showing how much devastation I would wish on them if my wife was not returned.

I still couldn’t read the facial expressions on the thing. There was no real point of reference and the only thing I could do was note the change in expressions. First it pulled back its head as if I’d slapped it. Then it very quickly bobbed its head from side to side.

I let go of the thing’s leg and it stood up quickly, looking at me with an odd tilt to the head. I pointed at the door, and it gave me one last hard look before it moved from the room and down the street.

I watched it go, and looked at the tiny tracker on its leg as it went. Just a little thing, really, once you took off the spear that was supposed to fire it into flesh. All that was there now was the barbed hook and a small cylinder that bounced softly against the moving calf. The hooks were punched into the scales, but I don’t think they actually penetrated the meat under the outer layers. If it stayed where it was, it would be something akin to a miracle.

A wave of nausea hit me hard as I stood back up, trembling and disoriented. The adrenaline in my system, the fears for Belle, the close encounter with a demon from hell, all worked to make me violently ill. I bit my tongue and shook my head and made it to my feet without passing out.

I finally started feeling a little better around the same time Ward let out another scream. I looked his way and saw the flow of blood running down his neck. He’d tried to stand up and slipped. I limped my way over to him. I didn’t want to help him. I really didn’t. But he was a wreck.

“There’re some dead and injured people here. It looks like an animal attack of some kind.” I don’t know why I lied, except that I didn’t want to be anywhere around the place when the police and emergency techs showed up. I had other things to take care of, like finding Belle.

I looked, and I could just make out the shape of the thing hopping and shuffling toward the shore. Without another word, I took off after it. Let Ward clean up his own damned mess. My body ached and my head was still feeling disjointed from the communication with the fish man but I couldn’t let that stop me. I ran faster, my feet slapping the road and sending shock waves through my shins and knees.