Hell's Teeth: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Paul Mannering

  “And everyone else?” Charlie asked again.

  Nari’s head popped into view, her dark eyes staring up at him with a burning intensity.

  “There is no one else,” she said.

  “Oh… shit…” Charlie felt nausea roll through him. “Casey and Tyler?” he croaked.

  “They didn’t make it.”

  Nari unbuckled her BCD and Charlie took the weight of the tanks. Setting them aside before slipping out of his own gear, Nari pulled on a pair of slip-on sneakers, track pants, and a hooded top.

  “Have you been in something like this before?” Nari asked.

  “Yeah,” Charlie admitted. “It’s a dive habitat, designed for oil-rigs, prospectors, and scientific use. It provides a shelter, water, air, and supplies for up to ten people. The structure’s rated to a depth of a thousand meters. So we’re in no danger of the hull collapsing, as long as the internal pressure is maintained. Just one of those things I heard sometime in the last twenty years of being a marine engineer.”

  Nari scowled at his sarcasm. “Through here.” She slid the handle on a metal door into the OPEN position and pulled the hatch. It swung towards them and Charlie followed Nari through into the central pod.

  With the door closed behind them, the air felt warmer and Charlie could hear Aroha speaking in an earnest tone.

  The central pod was a cylinder, 30 feet high and 20 feet across. The ceiling divided the cylinder into a snug chamber with a ten-foot ceiling. In the sections above were the utility systems of pipes and communication. The tanks in the base below stored fresh water. Insulation packed into the walls provided protection against the cold water and the same Trimix of gases the divers used in their tanks flowed from a mesh grille in the ceiling.

  Bunk beds lined one section of the walls. The rest of the space included a galley and dining area, all lit by halogen lamps bolted to the wall panels.

  Aroha sat in a small alcove packed with radio equipment. She had a headset on and was speaking into a microphone, “Mayday, mayday. Can anyone hear me?” she paused and listened to the hum of static coming back.

  Arthur sat cross-legged on another bunk; he glanced up when they entered, then went back to polishing his glasses.

  “Where’s Billy?” Charlie asked.

  Nari pointed to where the Samoan lay. Billy was unconscious, his face drained to the grey color of the seabed silt and his right leg bound in splints and bandages.

  “What happened?” Charlie asked, moving closer to Billy.

  “Falling debris hit him, crushed his leg and cracked his helmet. We were lucky it toppled over so we could get him out. He’s in a bad way,” Nari explained.

  “We have to get someone down here. We have to get him on a chopper back to the mainland,” Charlie insisted.

  “Aroha is trying to raise anyone now,” Nari said.

  “Shit,” Aroha said from across the small chamber. “We have no radio. I think the aerial went down with the ship.”

  “So? Someone’s going to notice the floating wreckage. This is one of the busiest fishing spots in the world—”

  “The Chatham rise is a rich fishery,” Arthur interrupted. “However, the prospecting zone is not part of that. The only hope we have of someone seeing any floating wreckage is if they steam right over the top of it.”

  “The Air Force. They’re always flying around, looking for unauthorized fishing vessels in New Zealand waters.”

  “It’s still not something we can count on,” Nari said.

  “Fuck!” the Helium in the air made Charlie’s voice crack to a high-pitched squeak.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Arthur murmured.

  “We stay calm. We keep safe and we wait,” Aroha said.

  Charlie took a deep breath and then started talking. “Ascending from this depth will take a long time. Then we will need decompression on the surface. Staying down here, we risk nitrogen narcosis. The air systems here won’t run forever. Food and water will run out after a week or two as well. By the time a search starts, there may not be any wreckage to find. We’re only a small ship, not a fucking airliner filled with hundreds of passengers. They’re not going to spend a lot of time looking for us.”

  “The top sphere, that’s designed for emergency surfacing, right?” Nari asked.

  Charlie nodded. “Yeah, but it took one helluva hit from the shit coming down. From the outside, it looked crushed. The interior may still be watertight. Has anyone checked to see what state it’s in?”

  The two women shook their heads. “We haven’t been here long enough to go that far,” Aroha said.

  “We should conserve our energy,” Arthur suggested. “No point in burning through the air we have faster than we need.”

  Stepping around the two women, Charlie climbed the narrow chrome ladder that led to a round hatch recessed in the ceiling. Twisting the wheel with one hand, he grunted as he pushed against it. The unlocked access door seemed strangely resistant. Bracing himself, Charlie heaved upwards with his entire body weight behind the motion. The seal on the door gave way and a freezing flood of salt water sprayed through the gap.

  “Shut the hatch!” Aroha yelled. Charlie choked and spat, blinded by the gushing flow from above. He slipped off the ladder and hung there, his weight pulling the metal door closed. Flexing his arms, he executed a pull-up and grabbed the ladder again with one hand. With the other, he spun the locking wheel shut.

  “You bloody idiot!” Arthur’s Zen-like calm finally shattered. “If you depressurize the interior, the whole bloody habitat could collapse!”

  “I think the top sphere is buggered,” Charlie replied.

  “No shit?” Aroha snapped.

  “Well, that’s it. We are F-U-K’ed,” Nari said.

  For once, Aroha didn’t laugh at her friend’s way of spelling out swear words.

  Arthur slid off the bunk, his feet splashing into the water on the floor as he stood up. “Sit down, all of you. We must remain calm and not give in to panic.”

  “There must be another way?” Nari asked. “An emergency system?”

  “The top sphere is the emergency system,” Charlie reminded her. She slumped down on a narrow couch that circled the chamber. Arms wrapped around herself, the Indian woman shivered and stared at the floor.

  “Doctor Prasad has the right idea.” Arthur nodded his approval.

  “Maybe we can repair it,” Charlie said, returning to floor level. “I’ll suit up, go and check on it. It might just need a patch weld or something.”

  “Great idea,” Aroha said, her voice oddly bright. “Say, did you happen to bring an underwater welding torch with you?”

  Charlie’s mouth opened and then closed again. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Well, think more.” Aroha turned away and checked a tiny glass porthole in the hatch that led to the next spherical chamber. “I’m going to check the rest of the habitat.”

  “I’m not sure that’s safe,” Charlie said.

  “Doctor Halligan, I must insist—” Arthur’s tone was starting to set Aroha’s teeth on edge.

  “I can see it’s not flooded.” Aroha cranked the handle on a small dynamo torch until it generated enough glow to cast light up the walls.

  Armed with the light, she opened the hatch and slipped through, pushing it shut behind her, ignoring the protests of those she left behind.

  *

  Tyler blinked and shivered against the freezing cold that soaked into his bones. In the pitch darkness, he could feel hard-packed mud under his metal gloves. He groaned and moved his limbs one at a time. Everything seemed to be in working order. “Anyone hear me? Casey…?”

  Silence except for the hiss of high-pressure water leaking into his suit. Tyler could taste salt. The leak wasn’t dangerous yet; the suit would have filled up drowned him in seconds if it was seriously breached.

  Organizing his limbs, Tyler crawled, shaking the mud off and trying to get some idea of where he was. The glow of the habitat lights we
re about thirty feet away. He leaned on a piece of dull metal and pulled himself into a standing position. The suit sloshed with the water building up inside it; he could feel the freezing chill rising past his knees.

  A stream of bubbles rose from the articulated waist section. With probing fingers, Tyler found the hole and pressed his gloves against it, holding the water at bay for now.

  “One small step for man… one fucking amazing step for Tyler…”

  He looked around, his feet twisting in the cold, dark silt of the ocean floor. Nothing moved out here, and his torchlight caught the gleam of torn steel and other debris that had come down on them when the ship sank.

  The damaged habitat reminded Tyler of one of those videos on YouTube, the ones where someone tripped and face-planted into a wedding cake. After the explosion, several tons of steel came down like an axe and split the top sphere before crushing it. That part of the habitat was as much scrap as the ship now spread out over the ground out there in the darkness.

  Bubbles were streaming out from under the walkway that ringed the habitat. Somewhere in there, one of the spheres was leaking air. As the pressure changed, water would flow in. Anyone inside would drown if the leak wasn’t fixed.

  A current swirled past him, giving shape to a darker shadow in the periphery of his vision. Tyler breathed and stared, eyes scanning in time with the sweep of his helmet mounted lights.

  A shark came gliding out of the darkness, indifferent to the tiny human standing on the barren seafloor. Tyler watched it, breathing slowly, letting the fish move on and ignore him, just like it was doing right now.

  The second shark struck a glancing blow on the shoulder of his suit, biting into a floating mat of foam insulation inches from Tyler’s head.

  “Fuck!” the diver yelped, flailing as he tried to maintain his balance.

  More sharks emerged from the darkness. Tyler thought they might be great whites. Casey’s bullshit advice about identifying them from their tails had gone completely as his mind blanked in terror.

  In the span of three rasping breaths, Tyler counted six sharks. All at least ten feet long and moving in an eerily synchronized pattern. They can’t be great whites, Tyler reasoned. Great white’s only come together to breed. They hang out on their own. They don’t hunt in packs. Not like this. Right?

  Two of the sharks changed direction, each approaching a pale lump sinking down through the dark water. Tyler stared, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It was a person’s leg, torn off above the knee and the ankle waving at a strange angle. The two predators coordinated their strike, each turning at the last moment to engulf half the meat. Tyler felt his nausea rising.

  In seconds, only a few drifting scraps remained of the leg, and they were quickly devoured by the scavenging fish who huddled close to the shark’s larger bodies.

  Walking with all the care and concentration of a very drunk person, Tyler made his way towards the habitat.

  A shark emerged from the darkness, shooting towards Tyler like a torpedo. He twisted, stumbling in the heavy steel suit and shuffling into the shadow under the habitat. He felt the shark bump against him before it turned away in search of easier prey.

  More than one, Tyler reminded himself. There’s more than one out here. Get the fuck inside right now.

  Twisting to look in every direction at once clouded Tyler’s view in a swirl of bubbles and floating particulates. He thought sharks hunted by smell. He wasn’t bleeding, but there was lots of blood in the water. Enough to bring every killer fish from here to Australia.

  Tyler walked under the habitat, aware of the sharks patrolling around him as they circled in the endless hunt for meat.

  He kept moving, reaching the ladder. The rippling circle that marked the divers’ entrance waiting overhead. He looked around one more time, checking for any inquisitive predators.

  The water in the suit had risen to his waist and he could barely breathe in the freezing cold. Without someone to work the winch and chains to lift the suit out of the water, he was stuck down here.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Tyler muttered and banged on the ladder with an armored fist.

  *

  “Fiberglass patches,” Charlie announced. He had spent the last five minutes searching the supplies they had on board for anything that could help him repair the damaged habitat shell. “I can cut them to fit, apply underwater epoxy adhesive and she’ll be as good as new.”

  Billy hadn’t moved or spoken since he got in here, Nari’s stare remained fixed on the floor, and Arthur seemed to be sulking because no one listened to him.

  Charlie’s enthusiasm flagged. “I’m going to check the outside.”

  Returning to the open divers’ entrance, Charlie slithered into his drysuit again. The air was close to freezing, and he felt goosebumps rising on his arms as he zipped up the neoprene and rubber suit. The dive computer showed he had enough air for a fifteen-minute excursion into the dark. Plenty of time to go around the habitat and assess the damage done.

  The dive ladder vibrated with the dull clang of ringing metal.

  Turning to the circular hole in the floor, Charlie frowned at the white shape blurred through the water. A metal hand broke the surface and waved.

  Charlie reached out and grabbed it. Even in the water, the weight of the dive suit was impossible to lift on his own. Letting go, he did a quick search of the dive chamber until he found what he needed.

  Breathing slowly through his respirator, Charlie sank into the dark water and felt around the dive suit. He could see the young diver from the ship, Tyler? talking loudly, but the sound was blocked by the thick glass faceplate of his helmet.

  Charlie waved the end of the thick cable he held, and then worked his way around the suit, finding a socket with a torn cable hanging from it like a severed umbilical cord.

  Twisting the dead line out of the socket, he replaced it with the comms cable from the habitat.

  “-king drowning!” Tyler shouted.

  “This is Charlie, can you hear me?”

  “Charlie? Get me the fuck out of this thing!”

  “Hang on. We don’t have anything strong enough to lift you out. You’re going to need to exit the suit. I’ll help you. Then we can get you inside.”

  “I’ll fucking die!”

  Charlie moved to where Tyler could see him. “You won’t die. The suit is leaking; if it had lost pressure all at once, it would have killed you already. Now you might have a chance. You just need to trust me.”

  Tyler looked pale and scared, so Charlie gave him an OK sign.

  “Get ready.” Charlie ran his hands over the suit, looking for the locks on the seals. He flicked the latches and held on as the remaining gasses inside the suit bubbled outwards.

  Heaving the suit open, he grabbed the struggling Tyler and shoved him upwards into the cold air of the habitat.

  Tyler rolled across the metal floor, coughing and shivering. Beside him, Charlie surfaced, pulling his dive mask off and hanging on to the edge of the portal.

  “I think I know a way we can get out of here, all of us. Safely,” Charlie said.

  “Get out! Sharks are fu-fu-fucking every-where,” Tyler replied through chattering teeth. He moved on to his knees, reaching for a towel hanging from a nearby hook.

  “Get inside and get—” Charlie’s voice cut off with a splash.

  “Mate?” Tyler stood up and turned around, shivering so hard he could barely move.

  The water in the dive portal boiled pink. A dark shape rolled and Charlie’s hand rose and fell, the gloved fingers twitching. Tyler stared in frozen shock. Something hit Charlie’s body from below and dragged it out of sight.

  “Fuck me…” Tyler whimpered.

  *

  Aroha knew about sharks, she liked all aspects of diving, and being under the water was always preferable to being on it; boats weren’t her thing at all. The cramped space of the habitat felt like the bowels of a ship and the tight space made her feel claustrophobi
c.

  The spheres around the central cylinder housed the systems to filter air, batteries to power the electronics, sealed containers of food and fresh water. The toilet was in a cubicle the size of an old phone box and looked like it belonged in an airplane. She used it and flushed into the open water.

  Checking the next sphere, she hesitated and peered through the tiny glass porthole. It was dark in there and Aroha felt confident that if her memory of the layout was correct, the heavy-duty batteries that provided the habitat with lights and heat were in that steel room.

  Straining, Aroha pulled on the lever that opened the door. It creaked and then water started to gush around her feet. Pushing back, Aroha closed the door again. The room was filling with water. The batteries were sealed and waterproof, but she didn’t know if the rest of the wiring would be.

  Turning around, she made her way back through the outer ring of spherical chambers to the dive sphere, which she thought of as being like a veranda.

  Aroha opened the door and found Tyler staring at the calm water. “Tyler?”

  He looked at her and nodded, his skin grey with cold.

  “Oh my God, are you okay? Come on, let’s get you inside and warmed up.” She helped Tyler to his feet and guided him into the central chamber.

  Wrapping him in a blanket and rubbing his head with a dry towel, she called for Nari to come and help. Nari climbed off her bunk and padded over. “He’s risking hypothermia. We need to warm him up.”

  Arthur watched silently as Nari and Aroha moved Tyler to the bunk. Aroha climbed on first, then Tyler lay down next to her. Nari covered them both with blankets.

  Tyler tried to tell them about Charlie but only managed to stammer his name.

  “Billy?” he asked as he managed to catch his breath.

  “He’s got a concussion and is unconscious. He should be okay though,” Nari replied.

  The shivering eased as Tyler’s body temperature began to rise. He felt desperately tired, but the image of Charlie’s hand reaching for him flared in his mind every time he closed his eyes.

  “Charlie was going to check outside, did you see him?” Aroha asked from her position spooned against Tyler.