Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz

by Tim Marquitz

  “Doctor Mason?” A male voice interrupted. “The Altus is ready.”

  Susan took one last deep breath of spices before letting go and stepping back. “Coming, Ed.”

  Bussing Richard’s cheek, Susan followed her assistant through the ships clanging metal corridor out to the lower deck.

  “Sir, will you do the honors?” Ed handed Richard the RED video camera, handling it as he might a newborn.

  Richard smiled at her, the strain only showing in his eyes. He held the camera to his eye. “Whenever you’re ready, darling.”

  Susan strode over to the Altus and paused, before sucking in her stomach and turning towards Richard’s camera with a professional smile.

  “The last person to dive to these depths was Jacques Piccard in 1960. He got to a depth of almost eleven thousand meters; that’s almost seven miles. It’s been over fifty years, and now we’re ready to go a little deeper for much, much longer. To the deepest part of the world’s oceans, the Marianas Trench. Today, I’m going to see things no one has ever seen before. I’m going to places no other human has ever been. And ... ” She tapped the camera mounted on the sub behind her. “I’m taking you with me.”

  Her smile faded and she took a step forward. “Got that, dear?

  Richard lowered the camera and kissed the top of her head. “Got it. You looked fabulous.”

  Susan smiled. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be back soon.”

  Susan waited for him to restart the video before climbing inside the Altus. A narrow hatch led down to the pressure sphere at the bottom. Susan held her breath and wiggled inside, working her way slowly down the slender tube. Unlike the romanticized image of tiny portholes and copper nuts and bolts, her bathyscaphe was padded with soft black material and had a small computer panel below the two windows.

  She dropped into a little chair and began tapping the keys. “Can you hear me guys? Okay, good. Let’s get this thing launched.”

  “Ready, doctor. The crane will lower you now.” Ed’s voice boomed across the internal speakers, clear throughout the craft.

  Susan held the edge of the computer panel as the bathyscaphe shuddered and swung on the end of the crane. For a moment, she felt weightless, until with a jolt, the Altus hit the waves. Blue water lapped at the windows, and then the craft was released from the crane and began to sink.

  Susan activated the controls, using the propulsion to steady her drop. “Thanks, guys, am now deployed. I will begin the dive any second.”

  Susan gunned the engine, monitoring the huge floats above her to ensure that she kept some buoyancy for the return journey.

  “Okay guys, the Altus has started dropping at a rate of around two meters a second. Pressure holding steady. The dive computer is adjusting the oxygen mix to specification.”

  Susan watched light blue fade to a dark, royal color. “Dropped to 495 meters and still descending. Light’s nearly gone; I can see almost nothing outside. Pure darkness below.”

  “The picture’s clear, Doctor, but it’s quite dark, nothing to, oh, yes … ” Ed’s voice drifted to silence.

  Susan pressed her hand against the glass like a child at first snow. For all her earlier worries, truthfully, this was the part of her life she loved best.

  “What is that?” Richard’s voice burst out. Susan turned to the second window as she heard Ed’s voice crackled through the speakers.

  “Vampire squid from hell. Ugly little critter isn’t he, Mister Mason? Squishy black jelly and glowing red eyes.”

  Susan followed the squid with the cameras, catching as it flashed different light patterns across its body.

  “Look at him,” she spoke half to her husband and half to the automated cameras. “We know so little about these cephalopods. They never survive when taken into captivity. I’m training the cameras upwards and turning the lights off a second. What do you see, Richard?”

  “Hard to see anything from below.”

  “Because it has as a bioluminescent underside to match the overhead light, blending in completely. Quite beautiful. Nature knows what an animal needs to survive in its habitat.”

  Susan took a moment to check the dive computer, monitoring her oxygen mix. Still green.

  “Over one thousand meters now. See, Richard, watch the spotlights on the outside of the sub.”

  Susan reached for a set of joysticks, manipulating them without taking her eyes off the windows. An array of spotlights cut through the darkness highlighting the fish swimming beside the sub.

  “Anglerfish! Even I know what he’s called,” Richard said.

  “Using his bioluminescent light to lure prey into his mouth,” Susan said.

  The beams illuminated the tiny shoals of fish as they darted around the bathyscaphe. The Altus kept sinking, the reading now over two thousand meters while the cameras recorded every fish that swam past.

  Susan blinked in the darkness as an eel dashed away with a wriggling fish in its pelican-like jaws. The Altus sank lower, multiple different species recorded on the cameras. “Fangtooth. Really don’t live up to the name. At almost eight thousand meters, this little guy is pretty—”

  “Doctor Mason.” Ed’s voice interrupted her speech. She felt a spark of annoyance; she’d have to re-record that sentence later.

  “What’s the matter, Ed?”

  “The anomaly has appeared again. It’s below, but speeding up and moving towards you, at over eighty knots.”

  She peered into the darkness, shivering as the cooling air hit her.

  “Where is it? Whose sub is it?”

  Richard’s smooth voice cut across the speakers. “Susan, it’s not any sub as far as we can tell. It’s, well, it’s too big. And too fast.”

  “Actually, Doctor Mason, I’m not sure what it is. But that’s not the issue, it’s—”

  Susan shrieked as the craft shuddered, knocking her off her feet. The lights flickered as the Altus dropped like a stone for a few seconds before juddering back to its slow, measured descent.

  The speakers crackled white noise for a moment before any voices came through. “ ... //////san … are you there, Susan? Hello?”

  Susan pulled herself off the padded carpeting onto the chair, her head throbbing where it had collided with the floor. Basic emergency lights illuminated the Altus, and the windows showed only blackness.

  “Ed, what happened?” She tried to focus on the panel, but her vision was blurred, her eyes watering.

  “Susan, darling, are you alright?” Richard’s voice crackled through the speakers.

  “I’m fine, I think. Just banged my head. Now shush and let me check on the craft, dear.”

  “Doctor, the thing we saw on the sonar swam close to you and the turbulence caused you problems.”

  She looked at her instrument panel. She could see many of the displays had changed to red, indicating emergency power, emergency lighting, and a few warnings about propulsion issues. “Yes, there’s some damage here, but nothing life-threatening. What on earth was it?” Susan steadied herself by holding onto the panel as her knees wobbled.

  “Not sure yet, Doctor, but it was huge.”

  “Huge? I designed the Altus to withstand turbulence from a blue whale.”

  “This was bigger,” Richard said.

  “Don’t be stupid, dearest, there isn’t anything bigger.”

  “Doctor, I can only report what the instruments say. Mister Mason is right. This is showing as over forty five meters long.”

  “What, that’s over a hundred and fifty feet! Nothing that big has ever existed.”

  “Yet … you’re already not far off Piccard’s record. We don’t know what’s below you in great detail. Remember, he was only down there for twenty minutes.”

  Susan looked at the panel again but still couldn’t focus properly. The engine was flashing a warning at her. “Damn this light. I can’t see! There’s damage to my propulsion being reported.”

  “Darling,” the speakers squawked, “The video feed is down, we can o
nly hear you right now. Are you okay, your voice sounds ... odd.”

  “I’m okay, thank you, dear. Banged my head, a small cut perhaps. But that’s not the problem. Whatever it was caused some issues. The main engine is down. The emergency thrusters have kicked in, keeping me from dropping too quickly, but I need to figure out ... ”

  Susan trailed off. Even though the exterior lights were down, she could tell there was something outside the glass. Something ancient with hulking breadth was out there, looking in at her sitting in a strange, bright bubble. The light must be as alien to it as it was to her.

  She clung to the panel, her knuckles whitening. The darkness was absolute, yet her skin crawled, the hair on her head standing on end as her breath whistled through her throat. Even though her eyes could see nothing, instinct told her something was outside, watching her. Something old and ravenous. She sucked in a breath to scream ...

  “Susan?” Richard voice dripped from the speakers, reassuring normality. “We can see the engine problems now. We need some time to fix what we can from here by running the maintenance protocols, or we’ll have to use the emergency recall button.”

  Susan tore her eyes away from the blackness outside to answer, her fear dissipating. How silly, to be scared by the dark. Must have been the bang on the head.

  “Only use that as a last resort, Richard. I don’t care how worried you are. That recall brings me up too fast; I’ll need to sit in the recompression chamber for days.”

  Susan examined the display again. A flashing warning symbol caught her attention. “Guys, more bad news. The oxygen mix computer is down and the sub is still dropping.”

  “Susan, I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t worry sir, I do,” Ed interrupted. “If the mix goes out of synch with her depth, she will experience some, ah, side effects. She’ll get dizzy, tired, unable to think clearly.” Ed’s voice boomed over the speakers as he directed his attention to her. “Doctor, how’s your head?”

  “A little woozy still, but that’s because I knocked it. I’m still drifting, almost ten thousand meters now. Wait, I can see something.”

  Susan bent her knees slightly, peering over the instruments through the thick Plexiglas windows. The darkness moved. Small shadows flickered past.

  “What can you see?”

  Susan’s inner scientist took over, and she fumbled with the video camera controls. “I hope I can get this. It’s a cusk eel. Famous for being the deepest-living known fish. Perfectly suited to its habitat, it has no eyes as there’s no light here, and it never goes to the surface. Damn it, why aren’t the cameras working.”

  “Still another record, doctor. It’s only ever been seen at, mmm, 8,370 meters before.”

  “I’m at, oh, dropping fast … almost ten and a half thousand.”

  Susan heard a sharp intake of breath crackle over the speakers. “Doctor Mason, that’s way too fast, especially with your oxygen mix problems.”

  “I know, working on it. I think I can balance the thrusters to slow me down.”

  Susan worked the controls, tutting to herself at the weak response from the bathysphere, but the descent slowed.

  “Susan, the anomaly is on the sonar again.”

  Susan felt it in her bones—a sound so deep that her hearing couldn’t quite catch it. Blackness gaped through the windows, but she felt that something was coming. Something big. It moved outside, the turbulence pushing the sub into a sharp spin. With a gasp, Susan fell to her knees, her head throbbing as it struck the sharp corner of the panel. Warmth oozed from her scalp, sticky blood dripping down her hair to the floor.

  “ ////... an. Susan? ////”

  White noise. Static. She couldn’t hear properly. She knelt by the panel, her eyes transfixed by the blackness outside. Even in that ultimate darkness, she saw a hint of its dark gray back, the dull glow of its eye as it swam past.

  “I can’t see!” She slammed her hands against the panel in anger, startled as the outside spotlights flickered on. Red rubies seeped from her knuckles, but she ignored the wound, entranced by the beams of light.

  “ //// … breaking up, pl … //// ”

  The spotlights struggled valiantly to pierce the murky depths, but their narrow beams only enhanced the darkness outside their range. Susan leaned closer to the glass, splayed fingers creating mist coronas around the tips. The darkness was absolute but she knew it was still out there. Her nose bumped against the glass at the same time she saw a flash of color. Red luminescent lights flickered in a slow pattern across a huge shape.

  “ ... ////san? Can you hear...elp is on the way...///”

  “Is that you?” Susan stepped away from the panel and pressed her fingers against the glass. “Red luminescence. Everything we’ve ever seen before has been blue or green.”

  Thrumming resonated through the bathyscaphe. It was angry now. The red light flickered away from the sub, the speed incredible. The size of the creature was impossible to determine, but it was enormous. Bigger than any whale, than any dinosaur had ever been.

  “Look at you, like a giant Pliosaurs, long skull, torpedo body and four giant flippers. But he died out a hundred million years ago.”

  “ ... ///// what’s she saying? She’s not making any sense...//”

  “//// need to get her up. It’s freezing down there, about 2 degrees. ////”

  As she watched, the light pattern changed, the flashing colors sped up and darkened. That was when the sound began again.

  She tried to pinpoint where it was coming from, but it was everywhere at once. Her heart thudded in her chest, her muscles turning into wet spaghetti, dropping her to the cold floor. Her first thought was to run, but she couldn’t move. There was nowhere to go.

  It came out of the blackness.

  Its size was unimaginable, gargantuan flanks rolling in and out of the spotlights. Its snout hung open, the gap large enough to swallow the Altus whole. A gigantic crocodile mouth showed row upon row of serrated white teeth, mocking her fear with their graveyard evenness. A black pupil stared at her, an inhuman intelligence challenging. The sound was so deep, it hummed across her chest like a swarm of angry bees.

  “—hat’s that noise ... Susa—”

  “Shhh, it’ll hear you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her body for warmth.

  The beast sailed majestically past her vessel, the turbulence once more sending the craft into a tight spin.

  The bathysphere eventually slowed, while continuing to drift down in silence. No monster, no voices on the speakers. Total hush.

  The blackness was intoxicating. She couldn’t tear her eyes away, when a horrible thought took hold of her. She tried not to think about it, but it kept gnawing at her, the logic unquestionable. What if it had killed Richard and Ed?

  She could see the support boat in her mind, overturned, gaping holes smashed in the hull. The image had a feverish quality that made her breath catch in her throat. Bodies floated in the water, all of them face down, skin white and bloodless as gray shadows moved through the water.

  “Stop it, that’s crazy. It probably can’t survive in shallow water.”

  Maybe it was there now, circling around the boat, Richard leaning over the side, looking for the sub. Maybe it hits the hull ...

  “Stop it, God, don’t think about it. It can’t be true.”

  The hull buckles, but Richard has already been thrown overboard. He’s not wearing a life jacket and the sea is so very cold at this time of year.

  “No, they’re fine. It can’t go that shallow, the pressure difference alone should kill it.”

  So why is the radio silent?

  Susan looked up at the dead lumps of plastic. Black formless things, ugly and useless with no sound coming out. She felt something then, some idea forming, but the oxygen mix was so wrong for this depth, she was too tired and woozy to think properly.

  “Let me rest for a moment, then I’ll worry about getting back.” A gray mist settled in her mind, her thought processe
s slowing.

  “No, come on. What did you think of?” She looked up at the speakers again. “What was it? Why are they silent? No, why are ... so useless ... like that things eye?”

  She sat up, a smile rippling across her red-streaked face. It had an eye; something not needed this deep as there was no light for it to see by.

  “Yet it looked like it had one huge, oversized pupil, on either side of its massive head. In fact, it moved away from the spotlights, didn’t it?”

  She grasped the panel and pulled herself to her feet. She blinked at the joysticks, trying to remember how to control the spotlights when movement caught her eye. Her head felt as though it was made of lead as she forced it up to the window. A red flickering signaled the beast moving closer. It was swimming towards her, white teeth gleaming in the spotlights as the cavernous mouth hung open.

  She touched the controls, her heart sinking as she watched the unresponsive lights flicker. She took a deep breath, the strange mix hurting her lungs now. Blood from her scalp dripped down her cheek, a trickle running between her breasts.

  Susan saw its huge dark eye, a brilliant intelligence glowing within. As it swum closer, she felt it measuring her, listening to her rapid breathing, judging her for her fear and anguish.

  Dispassionately, she noted a flounder swimming away from the beams of light. So there is still life this deep, her scientist brain noted. It must live off those. Usually.

  She touched the joysticks, pausing before pushing them. She was afraid to try, if they didn’t work now, there was nothing else she could do. She pushed the joystick and for one heart-stopping moment it didn’t move. Then something clunked and the spots began to shift.

  “Yes, thank you, yes,” she cried out, not even feeling her tears mixing in with the blood.

  She swiveled the spotlights towards the beast that was still moving inexorably closer.

  “Screw you. See how you like it.” She flipped a switch and the spots lit up to their full, blinding brilliance.

  The beast began rolling its huge bulk away to shield its eye, Susan following it with the light. It slowed to a stop, a pale gray belly facing her. She held the light steady, her breath caught deep in her chest. Her sweaty palms slid on the joystick’s smooth plastic, so she gripped tighter still. The deep thrumming sound increased, rumbling deep in her chest as the bathysphere vibrated.