Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans)

by Richard Chizmar

  “Take the coin and go, who or whatever you are.” I said. “Leave God-fearing men to their business.”

  He did not flinch, but his sallow face twisted.

  “Then you will have nothing,” he repeated.

  I made to close with him, not really knowing what I was doing, but he was off over the rail, and that long, low boat was moving away, fast. The dark man had one hand lifted, and in it was a length of something yellow-white, much like bone…

  “Harry, I—”

  “I'll get steam up,” I said, not trusting myself to speak to him.

  To the others I said something about a deal gone wrong, that the man who knew these banks had asked for more than he deserved. I ignored their questions, but Henrikssen saw what he needed to know in my face.

  To the skipper I said nothing. He took the helm and bolted the wheelhouse door behind him, a bottle of whisky in one hand.

  As we tried to make sure all the gear was stowed or tied down, I saw that there were other boats out there, all the same as the stranger's.

  “Three,” said Henrikksen, his broad face set hard. No one else could hear him. “Three to bring whatever comes. They are not a kind people, the stories say.”

  The waters over Ullins Bank were already choppy, such as we'd never seen them. Within the hour, the Gull was pitching badly, and the engine was struggling. I had Bill down there, his face black with soot and grease as he tried to keep it going.

  What came was a storm, worse than the blow outside the harbour, worse than any we'd seen for a long time. If luck could turn, ours had, and with a vengeance. Charlie lay sick in his cupboard-bunk, pus weeping from his hands, as if a fever had taken him, while Henrikssen and I did what we could. I hammered on the wheelhouse door, but the skipper didn't even turn to look.

  Ullins Bank was a boiling cauldron. Waves broke over the bow, the gunnels, from every direction, and only the skipper could know if we held a course or not. The deck locker with the spare compass had been ripped open when the mast went. Drenched and freezing cold, we worked on, praying we could get into deeper water.

  There was no true morning. Black cloud clung to the horizon in every direction, and the gale tore at our rigging, anything that wasn't bolted down twice. The aft-mast went sometime in the first hour, almost taking the trawl net with it, and we worked like dogs, the two of us on deck. If the gear went over, empty but still wet and heavy, the boat would go with it. I cursed myself for not insisting that it was properly stowed before we set out home. We would have cut it loose at that point, but it was tangled in the aft gallows. Henrikssen almost went over with a blow from the trawl-warp, which slammed by him, but I hauled him safe.

  “See to the boy!” yelled Henrikssen. I caught a billow of smoke from the funnel, and though I could hardly hear its pounding, it seemed that Bill was keeping the engine alive.

  Half the North Sea went down with me into the cramped crew cabin. Charlie was out of his bunk, moaning.

  “I can hear them,” he said, clinging to me. His hands looked worse than ever, a pale ooze from every sore. I gave him my cross, for luck, I said, and forced him back into his cubby. Once there, I poured hard drink down his throat until he quietened a little.

  When I reached the deck, my sou'wester lost in the gale, Henrikssen had found an axe, God knows from where, and was slamming it into the wheelhouse door, an old wooden thing. The planking splintered easily, and the door flew open.

  “Do something!” he yelled at the skipper. “This was your deal.”

  “We can ride it.” The skipper's voice was slurred, hardly his own. I pressed to Henrikssen's side in the doorway as another wave broke over us, taking the glass out of the side port. A sliver struck my cheek, warm blood mingling with the icy water.

  “We can't.” I gripped his shoulder. “We'll go down, man.”

  And we would, I felt in that moment. The pumps were going, but the gutting hold was full of water, and the storm was getting worse.

  The three of us stood there, little good against the three who were out in the storm, calling it down on us. I believed in the old tales at that moment.

  “Take the wheel, Charlie,” said the skipper, and pushed past me.

  I think we would have stopped him if we'd known his mind; I hope we would have. At any other time. But the wind shrieked, the helm bucked and needed strong hands on it. A loose steel rope whipped against the wheelhouse, a sound from hell.

  The skipper took a long swig from the bottle and tossed it into the storm.

  “Here's a little more for you, you bastards!” he cried out, and threw himself to the larboard rail. Threw himself to it, and over it.

  There was nothing we could do. No line or lifebelt could have found him in that sea. We tied the broken door shut and huddled there, keeping a course for home. The wind died down within the hour, and by the time we sighted Filey Brigg, the storm might never have been.

  * * *

  With the battered Gull in her harbour berth, I did what I could. Charlie I sent to Scarborough, and though he lay abed in the hospital there for a week, he came out of it with no more than some curious rounds scars on his hands and arms. He remembered nothing of the storm, or any dark stranger.

  To him and Bill, to the locals, the skipper had been lost in a gale, and most around those parts understood that. One life only was a good result for some families, who'd lost more than one brother or son, father or uncle, in a single stiff blow.

  The skipper had no near kin, but it was a shock when I found he'd left the Gull to me. Not as much of a shock as when his body came in with the tide, a few days later. It was a cruel, battered sight, and everyone in port wondered how it could have found a current to bring it here, from so far out.

  Everyone except the two of us who'd heard the dark man speak.

  If the message needed to be clearer, the skipper's body was tangled with that weed. Dead-man's fingers, the slimy stuff caught around his arms and legs. I had it torn off, and his clothes burned, before he was laid out.

  * * *

  We are going back to Ullins Bank, Henrikssen and I, with cold iron and a priest. There's a churchman out of Whitby who didn't laugh when I told him the story. We found heavy chain from the scrapyards, and he blessed it with his best words and all our will. The Gull will get us there, and God's grace may keep us whilst we seed the waters. Maybe it will cleanse them, maybe not, but Father Gyll says it will keep those other folk wary and away, for a while at least.

  I'll trawl no more. Crab pots will do, line-fishing by the cliffs, and whatever Elsie can grow. Maybe I'll learn to dig. My hands look clean, the skin free of sores, and a spade would suit them better. There's no use for a trawlerman who flinches when the gear comes up and weed from the banks is tangled in the net.

  Or one who watches the horizon, waiting for a long, low boat that never comes.

  THE WAY WE ARE LIFTED

  Aric Sundquist

  Madison pried off her leather work gloves and placed them on the concrete slab. She grabbed the paracord rope firmly in both hands and leaned forward, hanging dangerously over the side of the building. Although the rope prevented her from falling over, she would still get in trouble if someone spotted her. She gave a quick glance over at the Chancellor plucking a tomato from the roof-garden. He didn’t notice her absence.

  From ten stories above, Madison watched the dark water shift and swirl throughout the city streets. Sunken cars resembled gigantic beetles and a single crane rusted away in the intersection like a mechanical dinosaur struggling out of a tar pit. The wind was just beginning to pick up, nice and cool and causing the edges of her dress to flap around her thighs and boots. Far below, the current rose and kicked up sediment in whirlpools, turning the water into deeper shades of blue and purple. The smell of salt and seaweed permeated the air.

  Madison knew those signs well. A storm was coming.

  Down the street, she saw a faded stop sign shaking in the current. She never understood how the signs used to direct
traffic. She had asked Alice about it once, and her best friend explained how the YIELD and STOP and TURN LEFT signs all worked. But the explanation only confused Madison more. Alice then pointed to the wires crisscrossing the streets and told her the metal boxes used to change colors. Madison thought back hard and tried to remember what the boxes looked like before the floods, but she couldn't remember much. She remembered a few things, however, like being tucked into bed and her mother kissing her forehead. She remembered waking up early to the smell of pancakes and her dad bringing her food on a TV tray. She also remembered hot summer days and running through the park as fast as she could while the grass and dandelions blurred together into one long series of watercolors. This was by far her favorite memory—of flowers and sunshine and being with her parents. She felt safe then. She felt loved.

  She had other memories from before, but they were starting to fade, replaced with newer memories—of the sun beating down on her back, of working until her hands bled and listening to the screams of the girls who went into the Chancellor's office at night.

  Still grasping the rope, Madison leaned forward as far as the slack would allow, searching the sunken ruins. Sometimes the water distorted in ripples from the Deep Ones catching fish for supper. She had never seen one up close, but she knew they were dangerous. Last year a girl named Catherine had jumped off the rooftop and everyone rushed over to watch the strange fish-people tear her apart and fight over the remaining scraps like ravenous dogs. The Chancellor said it was an accident and he had his two Advisors string up the rope as a precaution. But everyone knew she had jumped off the side on purpose. Some even said she was pregnant at the time.

  Madison eventually spotted the little rowboat in the water, wedged against a tall pole that used to hold light. Her heart kicked in her chest. She had seen pictures in old magazines of how boats worked, and she could read enough to figure some things out. She knew people used paddles and sails to push the boats through water. But now, with the ongoing storms getting much worse, the boat would keep moving downstream with the current. She doubted it would stay put much longer. With another storm brewing on the horizon, it was possible the boat would disappear by tomorrow morning and her life would become even more miserable.

  Just then a sharp pain startled her back to reality. A hand squeezed her neck, then wrenched her away from the side of the building. She fell to her knees.

  The Chancellor loomed over her with dark eyes that didn't seem to have pupils anymore, and with a sloped forehead and hair beginning to fall out at the roots. He licked lips smeared with tomato juice and put his hand on the grip of his pistol in a threatening manner. “Get back to work, daydreamer,” he said.

  Madison coughed and rubbed her neck and got her breathing back. She ran over to the roof-garden and knelt down, flinging up dirt with her shovel, making more of a mess than actually helping.

  “You shouldn't have done that,” Alice said, kneeling down next to her. “It'll draw attention.” Alice was in her late thirties, tall and thin and with long brown hair just starting to turn grey at the edges.

  “I know,” Madison said. “But I had to see.”

  Alice nudged Madison out of the way and poked a seed deep into the soil with her finger. “Is the boat still there?” she asked.

  “Yup. But not for long, I think.”

  “Okay,” Alice said, pulling out another seed. “We'll leave tonight. If anyone tries to stop you, use this.”

  Alice pulled something shiny from her boot. Slid it over in the dirt.

  A knife.

  * * *

  Madison waited until the sleeping quarters grew quiet in Upper Eden. The children usually stayed up pretty late, telling stories and playing cards by candlelight. When the room finally went dark and all the children settled into their beds, she gathered up her belongings and crept out into the main hallway.

  Her boots echoed loudly on the tile floor, so she pried them off and placed them in her pack and went barefoot, sliding with her back against the walls, steering clear of the light thrown from the wall lanterns. The oil smelled like rotting fish. Some of the children joked that the oil came from the blood of Deep Ones. But that seemed silly. Blood didn’t burn like oil.

  She darted from shadow to shadow, checking each corridor one at a time, hoping the two Advisors weren't doing any late night patrols.

  Finally, she made it to the Chancellor's quarters. The door was closed and the window shuttered, but she could hear an adult speaking inside. Instantly she recognized Alice’s voice. She reasoned that her friend was causing a distraction, so Madison gathered up courage and darted to the far door and up the remaining stairs, leading outside.

  Cool air greeted her.

  Thunder shook the building and caused the metal infrastructure to shutter and groan. The air held a strange mixture of moisture and electricity, energizing her body in chaotic waves. Thankfully the rain hadn’t started yet.

  She found a place in the shadows and laced up her boots, sticking the knife flush against her leg inside her boot, like how Alice had hidden it earlier. She threw on her jacket and checked her supplies sealed in a plastic bag: three candles, a compass, a half-full lighter, a tin cup for bailing out water from the boat, and a Swiss-army knife. Content, she placed the bag back in her pocket and waited. Her whole body vibrated with fear and excitement.

  Soon, Alice emerged from the stairs, glancing around the rooftop. Madison stood and waved.

  “Were you seen?” Alice said, moving over and crouching down. She wore faded jeans tucked into her boots and a black coat that fit tightly over her body. Her hair was tied back tightly in a braid and made her look different. Madison had never seen her hair like that before. It made her look older.

  “Nope,” she answered. “They were sleeping when I left. What about the Chancellor?”

  “He’s incapacitated.”

  “What?”

  “He won’t be moving for a long time.”

  “Oh,” Madison said. “Are you sure we can’t bring the others with us?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I pried a little, but they’re too scared of getting caught. And we can only fit two in the boat, right?”

  “Right.” She hadn’t thought about that.

  “The Advisors do their patrols every hour,” Alice said, “so we don't have much time. I have four canteens with fresh water. Now, I need you to go and get the food while I work on the rope. Okay?”

  Madison nodded and immediately jumped into action. Ever since the three men had begun looking at her with uncomfortable stares, she couldn’t wait to leave the rooftop colony. She wanted to be away from this place, on dry land brimming with trees and flowers. She wanted to feel safe for once, not a prisoner on a concrete island.

  Madison moved quickly, wrenching out carrots and potatoes from the roof-garden, stuffing them inside her pack, to the point she could barely close the straps. Alice used a knife to cut down the paracord rope, tying the ends together and making one long coil from the pieces.

  “I’m going to lift you down first,” Alice said. She cinched the rope around the younger girl’s waist and thighs. “I think I have enough to get you to the fifth floor. When you stop, get inside, quick. Light one of your candles and wait for me, but don’t go anywhere else, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Madison looked over the side of the building and into the vast darkness below. For some reason her vision blurred, and she felt sick. Her body began trembling.

  Alice hugged her, tightly. “Just be as still as you can and don’t look down. I’ll do all the work.” She anchored the rope around a pipe for more leverage, then began lowering Madison down the side.

  At first, Madison felt discomfort from the rope digging into her waist, almost like a burning sensation. She bobbed around like a worm on a hook, until finally finding her balance by planting her feet firmly against the building wall. The pain lessened instantly. She moved lower and lower, and it felt as if she floated through a midnight ocean with salt
water and seaweed and a hundred other smells swirling around her. She angled her head up at the rain clouds just as the first drops stuck her forehead, tickling her neck and face. She held out her arms and felt free. She felt wonderful.

  When she hit the seventh floor, a sound startled her out of her reverie. Without thinking, she looked down just as the lightning lit the city in flickering bursts.

  Hundreds of the Deep Ones swarmed below. Pale bodies looked like a mass of writhing flesh and fins and webbed appendages. The lightning went off again, and she saw the creatures hopping on top of submerged vehicles as if they were lily-pads. Others swarmed up telephone poles.

  Fear clenched her stomach. She let out a shrill scream. From high above, Alice shouted something over the thunder, and then Madison was being lowered faster.

  A new sound rose with the wind, a chorus of strange, guttural voices. Madison had heard the frog-talk before when it rained, how the Deep Ones sing to the Old Gods, but she only heard it from one creature at a time—not hundreds in unison. She felt bile rise in her throat and wanted more than anything to be inside the building, in her warm cot and dreaming away the rest of the night. She clenched her eyes shut and didn’t open them for a long time.

  When she finally opened her eyes, she glanced up and saw Alice waving frantically. Through the sickening amphibian song and the wind screeching all around her and the rain kicking up faster, she could make out a few select words—mainly move and hurry.

  In front of her a dark rectangle led to an even darker room. She grabbed hold of the brick, and with every ounce of strength, hoisted herself onto the windowsill, putting her back against the glass. The lightning flared again and she saw herself in the glass, saw her long blonde hair and wide blue eyes that looked way too scared. The window was cracked in places and it took no strength at all to break with one well-placed kick. She climbed inside and planted her palms into something squishy.

  The carpeting was soaking wet and felt like mud between her fingers. She couldn’t see a thing besides basic shapes—the looming darkness of the hallway stretching in two directions on both sides and a crumbling wall directly in front of her. The smell was beyond horrible—fish and sawdust and mold.