by Jo Sparkes
She’d drawn a side view of a ship, with two square box structures on deck, one fore and one aft. Leaving an empty gap area between.
“Ain’t never seen nothing like that,” Mike scoffed.
“Sure you have,” Jon spoke slowly. “A Spanish galleon.”
Melanie hopped to her feet, darting over to the leftover food containers.
“That’s not possible.” Wall barked, his mind denying the sudden sense the diagram made. “A galleon would be centuries old - not decades. That’s not physically possible.”
Mesmerized by the drawing, Jon traced it with a finger. “Many galleons in the Caribbean.”
“Like the Atocha,” Mike murmured, his eyes suddenly afire. “Just ask Mel Fisher.”
Wall’s mind whirled. He was no physics expert, but the idea of wood surviving so well in warm water did not add up. “I believe the Atocha’s remains were metallic. Guns, gold. I’m pretty sure there’s no wood. Or if so - just bits. A beam, maybe. Not a whole bloody ship.”
Jon never took his eyes from the crude sketch. “Coral could have preserved it - or maybe the sand protected it for centuries. It has to be possible…it’s here!”
Jon looked up, his face shifting weirdly in the flickering light. “This explains everything! The gap…the perfect alignment. Even the lack of passageways below. I’m telling you - this is our wreck!”
Mike jumped to his feet, showering Jill with sand. “How far back does that book on Caribbean wrecks go?”
“We’ll soon find out,” Jon rose; the two hurried for the launch.
“Hey - don’t strand us!” Jill called. Deep in conversation, the pair strode past the small boat to wade out into the water, then dove and swam for the Sadicor.
Melanie tossed her half eaten wing aside. Sending Wall a look sparkling with - something - she trotted after them to dive into the sea. Despite her nice dress, despite her gold necklace.
Wall found himself locking eyes with Jill.
“Melanie figured it out?” Jill gazed after them with wide eyes. “Of everyone here, master divers, wreck divers. Melanie figured it out?”
That was the least of the many questions rampaging through Wall’s mind.
A halogen shone from just beneath the sea, the only light in a very dark night. The stars had winked out earlier, as if abandoning their part in this venture.
Jill regretted ever pushing for a night dive. The waves tossed them about like flotsam, forcing them all to work to remain near each other. The ledge to the upper cave looked on from several stories above.
Jon had called this slack tide. Thank God - she couldn’t imagine what it must be like otherwise.
“Melanie’s with Wall; Jill, you’re with me,” Jon told them. “Stay with your buddy, ladies.” His underwater light tilted, blazing across the circle of faces. Like a watery version of the campfire.
“What about Michael?” Melanie purred. Jill wondered if the woman was drunk - though you weren’t supposed to drink when scuba diving.
“I’m my own backup.” Mike patted his rigged tank redundancy. His grin faded as he met her eyes, maybe detecting her concern. “You’ll like this, mermaid. You’re finally gonna see those Spanish fan dancers.” His fingers opened and closed in a fluttery gesture.
She’d forgotten she’d ever begged to see those.
Melanie slanted her a pointed look.
“Living feathers that dance in the water,” Jon explained - though Jill doubted Melanie cared. “This is one of their favorite spots.”
“Sea snails,” Wall added. Did all Brits have this ability to take the extraordinary and make it so mundane?
No one spoke for a minute as water splashed, gear adjusted. Jill suddenly wished she could call it off.
“No wetsuit?” Wall asked Melanie. “Thought you were always cold.”
“You would think so,” the blonde murmured. Jill must have imagined the emphasis on ‘You’.
Movement ceased until the only sound was the sea. I begged for this night dive. She reminded herself over and over, like some sort of mantra.
I love diving.
“The lower cave’s pretty cool,” Mike offered, his regulator inches from his face. “Sure you guys don’t wanna check it out? All we gotta do is crawl through a short tunnel and surface.”
“You guys crawl in and out of places all day,” Jill found her voice, anxious to speak before anyone could say different. “I just want to see lobster and octopus.”
“Can’t you see that during the day?” Jon frowned.
“You somehow managed to scare off everything by the wreck.” Deliberately she spat in her mask, running her finger around the plastic before rinsing it in the water. Truth was, she wanted to get this over with. Truth was, Jill felt the dark night weighing down on her.
There was…a memory, trying to break through. A childhood nightmare - heaven knows where it came from - of being trapped in a dark place. Dark and damp, with an odor. A stench of decay…
Like the cave, she suddenly realized. Maybe that’s what triggered her fears again. That made perfect sense; no need to freak out.
Yet she felt no relief at the thought.
“Sure you want to do this?” Wall asked, looking directly at her. Beside him, Melanie’s eyes sparkled.
Jon must have thought he spoke to the blonde. “It’s not that deep - barely thirty feet. And I promised the mermaid.”
Feeling the woman’s eyes riveted on her, Jill hastily grabbed her own dive light and switched it on. “Let’s do this.”
“Can’t have enough light, can you, Jill?” Melanie murmured. And giggled.
Others adjusted masks, slipped regulators between their teeth. Jon looked around the circle, making eye contact with each. Waiting for her signal, she realized.
She quickly nodded.
They submerged.
Descending at night was different.
Jill had always felt herself dropping into a new world just waiting to be explored. Now a black abyss gleefully sucked them down, without any promise of letting them go again. Even with her cousin right beside her, she felt alone.
Just like her dream.
Jon’s mask tilted down, his dark eyes shining with eagerness. Anticipation.
I’m just feeling remnants of a childish nightmare. She firmly pushed her fears aside.
Her fins set down in a soft white bottom. Talcum powder clouds puffed out, swirling around her legs. She was the only one to touch the sand - everyone else floated with perfect buoyancy control. Even Melanie.
The other dive lights snapped on, beams shooting out like light sabers in a movie. Wall and Mike actually crossed them in mock battle. She saw Wall check Melanie’s face an instant before Jon checked hers.
He led her toward a coral cluster.
In Jon’s harsh halogen the coral looked brown, ugly. Dead, she realized. No fish darted within, no anemones fluttering their tendrils. Her cousin plucked dead seaweed from the gray surface.
Everything couldn’t be dead.
Sweeping her light over the bottom, over the rock barrier beside her, Jill saw nothing. She arced her light all around, even towards the open sea. There was no trace of Spanish fan dancers, no octopus. Just a single gray sea fan alone at the base of the cliff wall.
Her fingers touched it in sympathy; the fan crumbled. Its dust spiraled away in a single thread, swallowed by a black hole in the cliff.
Crouching, Jill shined her light inside. Almost, almost something seemed to flicker within.
It must be the lower cave.
Pink flashed beside her, startling her. Melanie’s mask leaned in to bump hers, the framed green eyes sparkling with devilment.
“What are we waiting for?” she murmured.
Jill’s blood ran cold - for the words were as clear as if spoken on the surface.
The blonde launched herself through the opening. And as her pink bathing suit vanished in the void, Jill realized the woman hadn’t even turned on her flashlight.
Wall prodded a conch shell - the only sign of life he’d seen down here. It slowly rolled to reveal a shattered, empty underside. Honestly, he’d expected their dive lights to attract lots of attention. Predators hunted in the dark, shy creatures emerged feeling safe after sunset. He’d never been on a night dive not rich in wonder.
Something flashed in his peripheral vision. He looked up - to an empty space.
Where was Melanie?
Whirling, his dive light found the rock cliff, and Jill on her hands and knees beside it. She’d thrust her head into a hole half a meter in diameter.
And he knew.
He shot over next to the brunette, pointing, but of course she didn’t see. Jon and Mike appeared, gesturing, questioning him. As they should, he realized. He was her buddy.
Jill withdrew, pointing at the hole.
It made no sense. Had Melanie been sucked inside? Could an odd current have pulled her, maybe disorienting her with fear? She’d never have deliberately gone inside.
His flashlight swept the sea around them, even checking the surface. Whatever the cause, Melanie was nowhere in sight. And Jill kept pointing to the cave.
Jon grabbed the brunette’s facemask, steadying her, forcing her to look at him. She quieted, though Wall could sense her exasperation. The girl was not hysterical.
Jon pointed at Wall, then stuck his index fingers together, an old signal of ‘get with your buddy’ or ‘buddy up’. Jill couldn’t possibly know what he meant.
Bubbles poured from her mouthpiece as she thrust out her arm. Pointing at the cave.
Mike cut the discussion by swimming through the opening. Jon waved Wall to follow.
He thought it best that Jill surface with Jon, while he went on with Mike. But there was no way to communicate that, and speed was vital. So he entered the cave.
The tunnel was narrow and long, longer than the upper cave entrance. Milky threads dangled in his torchlight, hinting at ghostly spiders. He glimpsed Mike’s fins ahead as the rock seemingly swallowed the man.
The fins vanished; the tunnel emptied into a large basin. Already above him, Mike rose to the surface.
Jill appeared at his side. Wall checked her eyes, sensed her nervousness. Yet she nodded gamely.
They both lifted their consoles, tapped their air valves, and ascended.
Wall burst through the surface a second before Jon’s shout. “MELANIE!”
Lifted his dripping torch, Wall aimed it on the far wall. Far wall indeed - easily twenty meters away. He tilted the beam higher, to find a dome-shaped ceiling five stories over his head. Somehow the arc and the echoing silence reminded him of a cathedral, albeit with stalactites clustered at the shimmering apex. Small in diameter, long in length, they were a mass of calcium spears aimed at their heads.
Scraping sounds echoed as Mike leapt out of the water. “GODDAMMIT WHERE ARE YOU?”
Even when Jon leveraged himself up onto the dry shelf, shedding gear as he rose, Wall remained treading water. Fascinated by the dancing sparks reflecting off the cavern walls. He was past the impression of a cathedral; now he thought vaguely of a Hammer horror movie.
“Oh God,” Jill whispered beside him, reminding him of his responsibilities. Together they struck out for the side.
Wall vaulted out first, dropping his gear before lending her a hand. “Jill, what happened?”
“She just swam in.”
Circling a tall cluster of stalagmites, he discovered an opening to another chamber, only slightly smaller than the first. Jon and Mike were already there, twin lights scanning the stone floor as if expecting to find her lying unconscious.
He stepped through the opening.
“I’m here.” Faint, raspy. Pinpointing the voice, he swung his light to a far corner.
Melanie stood calmly at the back, her light pointing up to a hole in the ceiling. “I wonder what’s up there,” she said.
“Bloody hell,” Wall bit out. “What are you doing here?”
She lifted a puzzled brow. As if she’d merely gotten a little ahead of the group, rather than violated every tenant of safety.
Jon and Mike stepped in silently beside him. Awaiting her answer.
“Jill indicated the cave - I thought you all had gone inside. I just followed.” Her voice echoed, along with the sound of water dripping.
Wall finally found his own voice. “You thought I swam into a cave without you?”
Remaining where she was, her light still on the hole, the blonde spared him a single glance. “That was silly of me, wasn’t it.”
Jill’s piercing scream split the air.
Women. Mike clamped his mouth shut, because if he spoke, he’d annihilate Wall and his blonde bimbo.
She stood at the back, innocent as they always were. Late for dinner? Not their fault. Spent too much? Not their fault.
This one actually left a night dive to go play in an underwater cave. She stood there now, pretending she’d done nothing the fuck wrong…
At Jill’s scream he sprinted.
The mermaid sat on the pool ledge, dive gear piled behind and frozen rigid. Eyes riveted on a spot by her thigh.
Suppressing his grin, he advanced. Expecting to see a nearby gecko, as he knew she hated lizards. If it was a spider, he fully intended to squash…
He saw the snake and his gut twisted. Hearing steps behind, Mike gestured to halt.
“Don’t move, Jill,” he whispered sotto voce.
She sent him a furious look - of course she wasn’t going to move.
Mike eased around to his discarded gear, where his machete lay attached to his B.C.
“That’s a Fer-De-Lance,” Jon hissed.
“Didn’t figure it for the garden type.” Moving slowly, his fingers freed the latch, grasped the hilt. Slid his blade from its sheath. Positioned now behind the reptile, he needed three steps to reach it. Jesus, where the hell had that thing come from? In all his years here, he’d never seen any snake, much less one so deadly.
Easing closer, he slowed his step. The neoprene boots might protect his ankles, but if the thing struck higher… at least it wouldn’t strike Jill.
In reflex, he gestured for her to hold still. Her jaw clenched in answer. One thing about the mermaid - she had courage. Behind in some of the more feminine traits, she’d always had guts.
Mike crept within striking distance. Raising the blade, he hesitated. If he screwed this up…
“A snake,” Melanie spoke from the chamber entrance. Jill twitched, the serpent hissed. Mike swung.
Its severed head splashed into the pool.
He quickly speared the wiggling body, swinging it away from her, holding it high. Jon moved close to study the markings.
“Definitely a Fer-De-Lance,” he said. Confirming what Mike already knew. “South American. Never heard of them around here.”
“Poisonous?” Jill whispered.
“Big time,” Jon said.
Mike watched Jill hug her knees with shaking hands. Jon, like himself, thought of the mermaid as tough, strong. A younger version of themselves. But right now she needed a hug.
He gave his partner a nudge. Jon didn’t get the hint.
“Everybody lived,” Mike finally announced, tossing the carcass to the far side of the cavern. Squatting, he patted her shoulder before shoving his machete into the water to clean his blade.
“Bad luck to kill a snake,” Melanie said.
“Tell me,” he asked the cave at large. “Isn’t blonde hunting season somewhere between deer and quail?”
Jill watched the big blade thrust into the water, as Jon’s feet appeared on her other side. She heard breathing again - the others must have held their breath as well.
She couldn’t seem to make herself move.
Mike’s hand scrubbed the gore off his machete; Jon touched her back. “You okay?” he asked.
Unable to do anything else, she nodded.
The scream had erupted pure and unsummoned, even before she’d identified what the gleaming
fangs beneath glittering eyes was. She’d have clawed her way backwards, except her frozen limbs refused to heed her brain.
She’d have died.
“It’s over,” her cousin murmured, his soft voice cutting through her racing thoughts. “You’re okay.”
Having taken two tries to stand up, Jill wasn’t so convinced. Her stomach rebelled at the idea of remaining in this cave another moment - but then she wasn’t anxious to get back in the water either.
And when she looked at Melanie, she saw the same cold, reptile look. The blonde scared her more than the snake.
Through the fog that seemed to envelope her, the blonde’s explanation of ‘I thought you were here; I followed you in,’ made no sense. The men took her to task without the severity she deserved.
At least that Jill thought she deserved.
“As we’re here, can we explore?” Melanie asked. And they all strode away, abandoning her.
All except Wall. “Are you really okay?”
She nodded.
“Jill, what exactly happened?”
Rubbing her arms, she spied the tremors in her fingers and quickly dropped them back to her side. “I saw the cave opening…Melanie appeared. She…she said, ‘what are we waiting for,’ and vanished.”
“You mean she gestured?”
Jill shook her head.
His face shifted, skepticism mingling with concern, because her story sounded crazy. She knew it was crazy - absolutely insane.
So she said nothing more.
After a few seconds, he stretched down a hand. Offering to help her up. She grasped it quickly so he wouldn’t notice how she shook like a frightened rabbit.
They trailed the others into the second chamber.
Jon’s beam lit up the far wall. “The hatchway,” he said, as if introducing royalty.
Jill had heard about it of course, but now, gazing up at the smooth surface, trying to shake off the numbness, she appreciated the story for the first time. A slick rock wall forty feet high, actually sloping back on itself. To climb it was to hang suspended by your own muscles the last few feet. The top opening was apparent by the void - spattered with white pinpoints.