Ocean Grave

by Matt Serafini

  She was glad when the topic passed, giving way to lighter and easier conversation. A couple of laughs. A way to forget her insides were twisted into a mass of worried knots.

  Sara relished the opportunity to think about anything else and kind of hated how well they got along, happy to keep their chemistry separated by a table’s length.

  “Kinda curious about you,” she said.

  Holloway grinned. “Whatever you want to know.”

  “White boy does tours off Madagascar. Don’t take it the wrong way, but that’s... interesting.”

  “Came for vacation one year. Couldn’t leave.”

  “Weak.”

  “What is?”

  “Your story.”

  “Heck of a way to talk about my life.”

  “You’re hiding.”

  “What is it you think I did?”

  “No idea. I just know that nobody works out of that port unless they’ve got no choice.”

  “I work out of many ports.”

  “Even shadier.”

  “So I’m shady now?” Holloway polished off his glass like it was water. After some silence, he said, “It’s a weird life. Remember when you were in high school and you’d have to see your guidance counselor and tell him what you wanted to do.”

  “Always wanted to be in fish.”

  That sounded wrong and they laughed about it.

  “I was in the Gulf War,” he continued. “There’s no story there. Life’s a lot duller than that. After two tours, I still didn’t know what I wanted. Just knew it wasn’t that. So I got out and spent some time in that part of the world—Middle East.”

  “How was that?”

  “A learning experience,” he said. “More I talked to the rest of the world, the more I realized how much I empathized with them. Don’t get me wrong, there’s bad, bad people there, but the folks who live there, man they’re just like the ones back home. Trying to raise families, practice their faiths, hell, they’re just caught up in the shit. To them, we’re invaders. And we can’t think of it that way ‘cause we weren’t trained to think of it that way. I don’t know about you, but I was raised to believe we’re the good guys. But then you see a history of wars we’re waging all over the world and... well, I get the resentment.”

  “Find me a perfect government,” Sara said.

  Holloway lifted his empty glass and grinned proudly. “A patriot. Okay.”

  “My dad was military. Didn’t come out with your perspective.”

  “My problem ain’t with the men and women in uniform, but with fuckin’ Uniparty that sends ‘em out to die for nothing.”

  “My dad would hear that.”

  “But you don’t?”

  “I think life’s too complicated for the 21st century. Maybe I agree with some of that, and maybe I think that’s too simplistic a worldview. I keep all of it to myself most days because there’s always someone eager to tell me how wrong I am otherwise.”

  “Knew I liked you,” Holloway said and refilled his glass. “Anyway, I didn’t have much of a life back home. No family left living. No girl to keep me tethered. No belongings to speak of. Thought it’d be easier to just... stay gone.”

  “See the world?”

  “See the world.”

  They drank to that. Sara crossed her legs and rubbed her thighs and felt a tingle as the captain checked her out. They both grinned as if fessing to wandering minds.

  Holloway cleared his throat. “I could’ve set up shop in the Mediterranean, but a dollar goes a lot further here and the weather’s just as good most days.”

  “You caught enough fish to buy a yacht?”

  “Won this ship in a card game.”

  “Shut up, Han Solo.”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  She laughed again. Some people’s lives were ridiculous. Her own included.

  “Hey,” she said. “Another question.”

  “Shoot, darlin’.”

  “You really believe in it? The treasure?”

  “More than God.”

  “And harder to find.”

  “Maybe,” Holloway laughed. “And it’s none of my business but... I wouldn’t be too hard on your husband. Idiot’s a lot closer than anyone’s ever come. No offense about the idiot thing.”

  “I’m too worried to care,” she said.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be long now. I’d better get back.” Holloway rose and headed topside.

  Sara watched him go, swallowed the rest of her scotch and took a few heavy breaths. Her face was hot and other parts of her were just as heated.

  “Jesus,” she said beneath her breath.

  She thought about taking a cold shower but decided she didn’t trust herself to be naked right now. If the captain came back...

  “Would you quit it?” she scolded herself and then followed Holloway above deck.

  A familiar voice screamed out. Indecipherable commotion.

  Sara scurried toward open air in a graceless climb, reaching the deck on her hands and knees as her husband’s high pitch screams catapulted up from the ocean below.

  “He’s dead,” Blake screamed. “Kahega’s dead.”

  Nineteen

  “What say you, king?”

  Kaahin sat at the rickety table inside the shack off the beach, staring at the night sky through planked wood. The moon stared back, leaving even darker slats across his dark face.

  Imani stood in the doorway. His fingers nervously scraped the bamboo jamb as he eyed the pirate’s men spreading across the beachfront, weapons in hand. An outsider would mistake this as a meeting between warring tribes, not old friends.

  The warlord repeated his question, pretending not to be intimidated. “What can I do for you?”

  “Some westerners make for the tip of Antisiranana.”

  Imani shrugged, but could not entirely chase the guilt from his features. This was insulting, given their history. Imani was a former despot, ousted from Zimbabwe during a revolt where the citizens tired of election rigging and forced the prime minister’s resignation.

  Kaahin had brought Imani and his men to the island for a price and the two had been in business ever since.

  Kaahin stared. Too often men betrayed their intentions with unnecessary words, and he had long since learned to hold his tongue. He preferred silence because others often rushed to fill it.

  “I saw the western man,” Imani said at last.

  “There is more than one.”

  “This one came to me with a guide from the coast. Paid for information.”

  “Who are they?”

  “No threat to you.”

  “I decide that.”

  “The white man is a coward,” Imani said.

  “They make for Antisiranana’s tip with another white man, a ship captain. I have heard of this man, and he is no coward.”

  “They mean to find Roche.”

  Kaahin smiled. People always came here looking for Roche. And Kaahin was always glad to find them when they did. They brought the best equipment on the most expensive boats. Westerners were often bold enough to bring their women, too, arrogant enough to believe such business could double as vacation.

  He used to take those women as a gesture of loyalty to his men. And once those needs were served, the bitches were sold to the Saudis for big, big dollars. Couldn’t do that anymore. The world was always watching now.

  Imani turned and took a presumptive step toward the table. Kaahin’s best man brought his pistol forward and cocked the hammer. The warlord raised his hands and said nothing.

  It was too hot for this. Every man here wore sweat like jewelry. Underarms soaked as perspiration rushed from their pores.

  The warlord stared at the Pirate King from beyond the gun. Uncertainty in his eyes, wondering if desperate times hadn’t gone beyond desperation.

  Kaahin half-smirked. “I allow you the inland mines, do I not?” That was a pretty good way to make a living. Too much attention for Kaahin, though he was glad to take a
cut in exchange for brokering certain protections. The warlord only needed to be honest about his profits.

  “Of course, old friend.”

  “You have helped them,” Kaahin said. “That treasure, if it exists, belongs to me.”

  “If it exists,” Imani said. “Nobody has ever found it. If the Americans manage it, they will not make it out of here alive.”

  “A risk.”

  “No,” Imani said. “The Malagasy Navy knows they are out there.”

  Kaahin sighed. It was not the Malagasy Navy that concerned him, but the United States envoys currently assisting them with maritime conditions. As had always been the case, Americans loved to meddle where they did not belong.

  That was one of the reasons Kaahin needed to be careful. Of more concern to him was what he’d seen on the eastern shore just hours before. The wreckage. The bodies. Screams of “Death’s head, death’s head!” Fresh memories that haunted him and his men.

  Kaahin waved Imani to the table and reassured his man that it was okay to holster the weapon and leave.

  “I saw it tonight,” Kaahin whispered once they were alone.

  “What exactly did you see?” Imani asked.

  “A boat that was all splinters.”

  Imani looked back through the door, to the beach beyond. He moved his seat out of view as if the ocean spied on them. His voice was barely a whisper now. “At last you know.”

  Kaahin clicked his tongue in disgust. “What can you know about the sea?” In Roache’s day, they would have called Imani landlubber. Kaahin did not wish to hear any such thoughts on what lived beneath the waves.

  “I listen when people speak, Kaahin.”

  “What they speak of is superstition.”

  “And yet just now you confess to seeing it. With fear in your eyes you confess.”

  Kaahin learned long ago to never fool oneself. There was no benefit to it. He’d survived long on that philosophy. But after seeing a poacher swallowed by something in the sea, something he lacked the words to describe, it had become clear that the unthinkable was true. The thing his countrymen feared was real.

  He could ignore it, but at what cost?

  There was suddenly much more to be done, and that thought made him tired. This little voyage might have begun as a blood hunt, a means to resupply while the governments of the world had eyes on him.

  Now it was something else.

  Kaahin couldn’t recall off hand the last time he’d seen his family. In order to ensure their safety, they did not live anywhere near here. He communicated with them through VPNs when it was safe to do, and while most of his profits had gone to them, he wasn’t certain he’d made the right choice in abandoning them. What kind of man leaves his loved ones to the fates?

  Too late to turn back. The world hunted pirates because there was not a single country on earth that wished to abandon tourist dollars to such a nuisance.

  The problem in Kaahin’s mind was that whatever he’d seen tonight was responsible for more disappearances than his two decades on the Indian Ocean.

  Now Kaahin sat at the table, looking up at the full moon and wondering why his ancestors had waited so long to show him the truth.

  He knew better than to spread this news to his men. It might alleviate some of the long-term damage to morale, but at too great an expense. People spoke of how Kaahin allowed his crew to die in order to feed himself. How his voyages were cursed. That he should not have slaughtered all those supply ships that had been trying to reach the Middle East back then. He needed to reclaim his reputation. And he wouldn’t be able to do that if his men were too scared of the water to help him succeed.

  “So what will you do, my friend?” Imani asked.

  Kaahin tapped his fingers on the desk. Chewed it over. “We’ll use the boat.”

  “The boat? It is the last asset you have. You would spend it so foolishly?”

  “There is nothing foolish about why I am here.”

  “You are serious about the hunt?”

  “Nothing can be accomplished if that thing is to remain out there.”

  “There are other ways.”

  “There are not.” Kaahin stood, walked to the door and looked at the water.

  “If you choose to confront Madagascar’s past, you will die,” Imani said. “But I see that your mind is made up.”

  “Just tell me you have what I need.”

  “I do,” Imani confirmed. “My men supply yours as we speak.”

  “The RPG?”

  “If you are going after the devil, you will need more than an RPG, but yes.”

  Kaahin took one last look at his friend and then hurried toward the boats beached on the sand.

  Twenty

  Holloway’s cheeks pulsed as he watched Blake shimmy gracelessly from the top half of his wetsuit. The entire crew surrounded him, demanding answers.

  Sara couldn’t defend him. That was the worst part. The path forward would’ve been, “My husband’s no liar,” only that didn’t fly anymore, because that’s exactly what he’d become.

  And they were made. Strangers knew their situation. So it was impossible to make any serious claims about the integrity of Blake’s word and have it mean anything other than shit. Sara would have an easier time convincing the captain that she was Santa Claus.

  Blake wasn’t about to wait for his wife’s defense. “I came up out of the cave and Kahega was gone,” he said, breathlessly. “No sign of him anywhere.”

  “How hard did you look?” Holloway pressed.

  “My tank was practically on empty,” Blake said, sucking air like he’d never taken a breath before. “I barely made it up.”

  The captain had no choice but to take his word. He seethed, losses suddenly greater than what he’d been willing to incur. Hadn’t once stopped to consider anything on this trip could be so devastating.

  That spoke volumes about him. This had been rushed and sloppy from the beginning, the entire hunt born from a lie. Blake was no diver. That hadn’t concerned anyone. Their only worry was finding whatever down there passed for a demon’s tongue.

  “Suit up,” Holloway told them. “Everyone goes in.” He smashed his hands together and roared so loud the Emerald Tides party ship might’ve heard them. “Move your asses!”

  The men hurried below deck to their gear lockers as Holloway continued to glare, fantasizing violence. Sara slid an arm around her husband. She helped him to his bunk. Her fingertips only hovered around his shoulder.

  Once they were safely out of earshot she asked, “You okay?”

  “One minute he was there...”

  “I know.”

  “Then...”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Just say you believe me.”

  “Yes,” Sara said. “Yes, of course I do.”

  Blake’s feet scuffed the floor as she brought him straight to bed.

  Sara tugged his floppy wetsuit the rest of the way off. It snapped like broken elastic and she flung it into the corner with a frustrated growl.

  Blake’s head was cradled in his trembling hands. He took deep breaths but couldn’t hold back the emotion. “All for this,” his voice wobbled, overturning his hand to reveal a muted red jewel the size of a baby tomato. The corners of his mouth tried to turn up, but the gravity of the evening made sure his frown stayed anchored.

  Sara’s heart lurched. She didn’t fight it. You couldn’t stop caring for someone the first time they betrayed you. No matter how bad it was, the soul wasn’t wired that way. Even when your brain argued it was for the best. God, this would be so much easier if she had the power to shut Blake out.

  She got to her knees and closed her palms around Blake’s wrists, gently parting his hands so that she could see his eyes.

  “What happened down there?”

  Blake wouldn’t talk about it. Said that if he tried to tell it, the panic would come back and finish him. He knew nothing of Kahega’s fate, he swore. And that she believed.

 
“You need to sleep,” Sara said.

  “I should help them.” He started to get up and her hands were on his shoulders to prevent that from happening.

  “You can’t,” she said. “Just sleep. I’ll wake you when there’s news.”

  She used a towel to dry his hair. Got him to lie down. She slid a blanket over his shivers and brought a bottle of Perrier from the fridge. Put it on the bed table and took the jewel in her fist, promising to keep it safe while he slept.

  “A few minutes of rest.” Blake repeated her suggestion like it was an inspired idea. He put up no further resistance and she left.

  Holloway remained on the deck. His clenched fists gripped a scoped automatic rifle. He squinted through it, watching the night.

  Sara stopped short of approaching, leery of getting any closer to a defeated man. If he was the lashing out type, he could blame her for everything.

  He knew she was there and turned to reveal grief-stricken features, sullen and sunken. “He’s gone.”

  “Blake isn’t lying,” Sara insisted. “I know what you’ll say, but he isn’t.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not his f—”

  “Just told you I know it ain’t.”

  She lifted her arms to feign surrender, gnawing her inside cheek to prevent the mean-spirited smile. Since grade school, Sara had never been able to stop herself from laughing at the most inopportune times. Some people processed grief and awkwardness this way, and it was a bitch.

  And this was funny. From a certain point of view, it was downright comedic. Somber cowboys who blazed across the ocean, cocked and loaded, ready to kill for their dreams, only to suffer humiliated silence once those dreams wised up. If you couldn’t laugh at that, then what?

  Sara had no stomach for this, but as far as she could tell, she was the only one not pretending.

  Silence was the name of this game. She and Holloway played it for an hour. Not a single word passed between them. The divers began returning in groups of two, and all their reports were the same: Kahega was a memory.