26

The chance of making it back should something go awry with my air dwindled with each step. Nonetheless, I pushed onward, fighting panic as I ventured further and further from the facility. Movement of the ice floes overhead on the surface caught my eye, and I craned my neck to peer up. “What is that?” I hoped they heard me. “There’s something coming down. Hello, Ash? H-Hunley?”

Strands of white, filament-like threads descended from underneath the chunks of ice. They thickened as they lowered, twirling like sheets of spider webs in the current.

“One moment,” Ashton answered. Muffled conversation sounded and then the rustling of papers. “They are thread icicles, we believe. Formed from the briny water left after the surface freezes. Hunley thinks the storm above is causing them.”

“Thinks?” I gasped, moving away from a tangle of the drifting ice strands.

Hunley’s voice was rushed in the background, and the urgency set my nerves off.

“Yes, we’ve seen them before during these ice storms. Do not let any part of it touch you,” she said. “They are deadly. They freeze anything they touch. You are not in the metal suit. The gum rubber diving skin will not protect you.”

“They are descending everywhere,” I cried, trying to move faster. The curtain of ice filaments whirled, like tornado clouds, touching down in front of me. The wispy funnel floated to the floor of the sea, and spread out, flowing along the bottom like a snowy-white river. Fish swimming by froze instantly and sank, the stream of frigid death encasing them as it moved. “I cannot avoid it.”

“Move, Charlie,” Ashton shouted. “Get out from under them!”

The flood light slashed through the water, glistening off the filaments. They refracted like fine crystal, growing ever thicker, denser as the Atlantic froze on top of me.

“You do not understand.” I dropped onto a knee. Struggling upright, I tried to dodge the threads drifting down in every direction. Craggy lava upcroppings jutting up from the sea floor, their molten innards long gone cold in the frigid Atlantic, obstructed my steps, blocking my escape. A fragment of the ice filaments brushed against my helmet “They’re everywhere!”

Frost crackled along the outer edges of my face window. I rubbed at it through the protective screen with my gloved hands, visibility ebbing as the temperature dropped drastically. Terror seized me, squeezing the breath from me. Too cold. It was too cold. Grappling to get around the jagged rocks at my boots, I pushed myself, counting out the beats of my slowing heart. The frost formed again, blocking out everything. Frantic to see, I scraped at the face window again, the air too stifling in the helmet. The distance closed so achingly slow. “Almost there,” I told myself, keeping my gaze on the vessel. “Just get to the ship.”

My limbs turned sluggish, the mechanica firing frantically to keep my muscles from freezing. My teeth chattered so loud, I could hear nothing else. I reached for the hatch of the Chasm Walker.

“Charlie, watch out!” Ashton’s desperate voice cut through my chattering.

A long, sinewy limb materialized on the handle. The suckers, as large as saucers, swung at me through the cloudy sea. The blow, swift and tremendous, launched me away from the vessel. I landed on my back, felt the movement of water overhead, and tried to shield my face. The giant squid’s appendage swung back, connected with my helmet in a bone jarring crash. I screamed as my body soared through the water. A hose disconnected, whipping out into the sea. I gasped, flailing for it, my mind firing with panic. The constant air still on my face told me it was the communication tether.

I crawled, using my buoyancy to right myself. I had to get inside, but the creature blocked my path, its arms scourging back and forth, slamming against the vessel with muffled booms. Its large, roving eye followed me, and I took a chance, lunging to the right. The squid propelled toward me with arms flared. It swam directly underneath a whirl of filaments, tangling with the curtain of ice. The netting wrapped around the beast as it lashed about, thrashing for a moment before going white itself, deathly still.

“I am all right,” I said, before realizing I was alone in the abyss, my connection to Ashton gone. “I will make it—”

A sound in my helmet made me freeze. I blinked, horrified, as a crack started at the edge of the face window, skittering along the surface. I moved, striving with every fiber of my being against the cold water. I reached for the hatch, pawing at it ineffectively with hands I scarcely felt.

“Please!” I screamed, finally grabbing hold of the water lock. It opened slowly, as I lunged inside. The crack extended, deepening through all the layers of the glass and I panted. Terror snaked through me as I forced the door to the lock closed. Feeling along the walls in complete darkness, I found the controls, hit the air pressure button, and waited. Nothing. “No, no, no,” I slammed it again. “Work!”

The apparatus chugged to life. Air forced its way into the chamber, the water level lowered, inches at a time. The face plate gave and glass blew inward. Sea water rushed into the helmet, down the neck of the diving skin, freezing my body with deep pain. I clung to the wall and held my breath, eyes clenched against the icy sea. Counting, praying, hoping the air would come before I passed out. Whole body quaking with the cold, I nearly broke. Nearly took in a gulp of water, unable to resist the burning in my lungs. The helmet and body armor weight returned. My head free of the water, I gasped, a wrenching coughing breath that exploded bursts of light behind my eyes.

I leaned against the side of the chamber, shaking and sobbing. When I moved, glass dug into my cheeks. Feeling for the bolts at my neck, I wrenched them loose, turning them with trembling fingers. They clanked onto the floor, and I twisted the helmet free and let it drop. The metal clanged, echoing loudly throughout the small chamber. Gingerly, trying to keep from cutting myself more, I pulled the shards from my skin, wincing with the dull pain.

Overhead, tinkling and tapping on the hull pulsed dread through me. The ice fell onto the vessel, and I wondered if it would be completely encased.

“Move, Blackburn,” I scolded myself. “No time for sniveling.”

The water-lock had another door leading into the ship, much like the dive room’s configuration. Trying the wheel in the doorway, relief flooded me when it turned easily. It released its seal with a hiss of air. I paused, my stomach crawling. It smelled of decaying flesh and rotten food inside. Hesitating, I glanced back at the chamber. I could not stay here. I could not go back with a ruined helmet.

“Must go forward,” I heard my father’s voice in my memories.

Pushing through the hatch, I let my eyes adjust to the light streaming in through the large front window of the helm. A bank of controls lined the view port and through it, the beams of flood lights from the facility lit up the interior of the ship. I took a step inside, listening, hating the sound my weighted boots made on metal floor.

“Hello?” I called, hoping against hope for silence. Nothing.

Where was everyone? What of the crew who died here? A corridor off the helm lead off into darkness. At the far end of the room, an open chute housed a ladder that went up to a ceiling hatch. Turning to the controls, I squinted, trying to find what I was looking for. Much like the panel in the Stygian, the bank of levers and dials looked somewhat familiar. I found the power switch.

Closing my eyes, I held my breath, whispering a prayer. Please, Lord, let me get back to them. Do not let me die out here in this metal crypt.

Taking a deep breath, I tried the ignition. A low vibration churned beneath my feet, rising to a rumble as the lights on the panels and along the ceiling of the cabin winked on, flickered, and then grew in strength. I laughed hysterically, bending to untie the weighted boots. They slipped off and I faced the controls, absolutely shocked that the Chasm Walker still had life in her. An errant thought flitted through my mind…if the vessel worked, then why—

A flurry of anguish flew through my mind. Need and grasping rage tumbled through my thoughts and then a low, garbled moan tore from my throat. “No,” I gasped, peering down at the empty corridor. Movement in the dark, lurching and wrong, caught my eye. “Not here!”