Hell's Teeth: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Paul Mannering

  Kelly was floating limp in the water, her body just another piece of torn wreckage drifting in the darkness. Casey swam towards the glowing beacon of her helmet light. A pair of sharks emerged from the darkness, swimming with the casual swagger of apex predators as they homed in on the unconscious woman. Casey yelled into his respirator, waving his arms and trying to distract the killer fish. He couldn’t see if Kelly was bleeding, but nothing else would have the two great whites homing in on her like a pair of guided torpedoes.

  The first shark turned, its jaws opening wide as it crashed into Kelly at waist height. The grey shape convulsed, twisting and tearing as it bit down, through the neoprene drysuit, through flesh and bone. The second shark’s mouth opened like a bear trap and sprang closed on Kelly’s shoulder, separating limb from torso in one great, tearing bite.

  Casey felt his gorge rising. Throwing up down here would be bad; he’d probably choke on it. Kelly’s remains vanished in a cloud of blood, rendered grey by the lack of light. The sharks made short work of the scraps, and within a minute, the woman’s body was gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  Chatham Rise South Pacific Ocean, Longitude 44° S, Latitude 176° W. 400 meters below the surface.

  “Why don’t we just surface and let off a flare or something?” Nari asked.

  Aroha replied immediately, “Because we are between the mainland and the Chatham Islands. We can’t guarantee that a ship will be anywhere nearby, and we have as much chance of drowning on the surface as we do down here.”

  “Arthur thought it was worth a try.”

  “Arthur is an idiot. He’s abandoned the rest of us in a stupid attempt to save his own ass!” Aroha was still fuming about the geologist escaping on his own.

  “At least he’s doing something! If we stay here, we will die. If we surface, at least we have a chance!”

  Aroha didn’t know how to respond. Instead, she put her hand on Billy’s forehead. The Samoan had been unconscious for an hour now and she wondered if he might ever wake up. “We can’t move Billy. At least not until he wakes up and we can assess him properly.”

  Nari paused in her pacing of the small chamber. “Do you think we are cursed?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely cursed.”

  “Your brother,” Nari said immediately. “I am sorry, I did not mean to make you think of him.”

  “I was supposed to be back in time for Dave’s funeral,” Aroha said. “God help my parents if they have to hold memorial services for both of us.”

  “I wish Tyler would hurry up,” Nari said, changing the subject.

  “We shouldn’t have let him go outside.” Aroha sounded distracted, lost in the memories of her brother’s recent death.

  The locking wheel on the steel door that led to the dive room spun. Both women turned to watch; it couldn’t be anyone but Tyler, though they still had some hope.

  The young diver blinked when he realized that Aroha and Nari were staring at him.

  “Are you okay?” Nari asked.

  “Uh, yeah. I mean, shit,” Tyler said.

  “Did you find the source of the leak?” Aroha asked.

  Tyler nodded. “Top sphere, it’s fucked. Crushed, by a big chunk of wreckage.”

  “Mardachod!” Nari cursed.

  Aroha frowned in concentration. “Okay, that confirms why our communications array is out. We could float a cable to the surface. Broadcast a signal up the wire and hope that someone picks up the message.”

  “Yeah, that would work. We could inflate a dive bag and tie the cable to it,” Tyler nodded.

  “The communications cable, that connected us to the ship, we could try floating that?” Aroha looked hopeful.

  “I think it’s still outside. If not, there will be a lot of it somewhere on the ship,” Tyler added.

  “When can we go and get it?” Nari asked.

  Tyler chewed his lip, his desire to be the hero challenged by his nervousness. “I’d like to eat and warm up first. We should give everything a chance to settle. There’s a shit-load of silt and floating crap in the water at the moment.” He hoped that once the sharks had eaten their fill, they would also move on in search of fresh prey.

  “Of course, you’re right.” Aroha grabbed a blanket and flapped it until the micro-fleece unfolded. “Wrap up, I’ll find some food.”

  Their first meal consisted of noodles heated on a small electric element. Aroha stirred in a tube of fish paste protein and served enough for the three of them.

  “How long with the lights last?” Nari asked, cradling a hot bowl of noodles in her hands.

  “I don’t know,” Aroha replied. “There’s batteries that were charged by the currents driving a generator fan on the top sphere. If that’s all gone, maybe a few more hours?”

  “Without electricity, what happens to the habitat?” Nari asked.

  Tyler spoke up, keen to show the two women he could help. “There’s back up Trimix tanks. They’re still secure. The filters that scrub the CO2 out of the air, they don’t need electricity. See they have—”

  “I have a Master’s degree in chemistry and a Doctorate in sedimentary bio-chemistry,” Nari snapped. “I know how a carbon-dioxide scrubber works!”

  Tyler subsided into a sulking scowl, glaring at his bowl of noodles.

  “Maybe we should all try and get some sleep?” Aroha said into the cold silence. “We can’t do anything right now, and I’m sure we’ll feel better with clear heads.”

  Nari put her untouched food down and walked off to lay down on one of the narrow bunks. Wrapping up in a blanket, she rolled over and faced the wall.

  Aroha and Tyler ate in silence, the steam from the cooling noodles adding to the pervading damp.

  “Which bunk do you want?” Aroha asked, putting her empty plate aside.

  “I dunno, whichever, I guess.”

  Aroha went and made a nest for herself in an empty bunk. Tyler scraped the last of the noodles out of his bowl and wondered if he should use the bathroom before going to sleep. A moment later, he cocked his head, listening to a scraping sound that came from the underside of the habitat. The currents weren’t strong enough to move the metal wreckage and a fish wouldn’t make that much noise. Tyler went to the metal doorway that sealed the dive entrance off from their quarters. Peering through the tiny glass porthole, he tried to see into the gloom. A moment later, a pale face appeared on the other side.

  “Casey!” Tyler shouted and grabbed the locking wheel. Spinning it open, he heaved the door wide.

  Casey stumbled into the sphere, shaking and pale. “Fuck me,” he said. “Fuck me.”

  The two scientists crowded around, everyone asking questions and trying to tell their own version of events all at once.

  Casey waved them to silence. “Where’s Billy?” he asked.

  “He was injured. A broken leg. He passed out when I splinted it,” Aroha explained.

  “Anyone else?”

  The survivors of the dive shook their heads. Casey sat down on a plastic crate.

  “I found Kelly, you know? The first mate? She’d managed to get into dive gear and secured herself in the ship when the shooting started.”

  “Wait, what? Shooting? What the hell happened up there?” Aroha demanded.

  Casey took a deep breath and explained what he knew; South African mercenaries, apparently paid to destroy the ship by some extremist environmentalist, had scuttled the vessel.

  “That is the most insane thing I have ever heard!” Aroha looked like she wanted to laugh.

  Casey continued, “I was on the ship when they started killing everyone. It was the camera guy and his crew. They seemed pretty professional when it came to blowing shit up.”

  “The captain, did he make a distress call?” Nari asked.

  “I don’t think so. The radio room got smashed up.”

  “Where is Kelly now?” Nari asked.

  “She… didn’t make it,” Casey replied.

  The others stood i
n silence, aware that they were facing the same fate.

  “We need to get out of here,” Nari said. “We were talking about sending the communications cable to the surface and then transmitting a distress signal on a radio frequency.”

  “The radio transmission gear is in the top sphere,” Casey said. “From what I saw, that’s pretty much gone.”

  “Yeah, it’s fucked,” Tyler agreed.

  “How are we going to get help then?” Nari threw her hands up in frustration. “Honestly, this kind of thing must happen to other expeditions. Someone must know we are missing?”

  “Not for a week, maybe ten days,” Casey said. “If there is an oil slick on the surface, or floating debris, that could raise the alarm.”

  “How far is it to the Chatham’s do y’reckon?” Tyler asked.

  Casey shook his head. “At least three hundred k’s. We aren’t swimming to land.”

  “I am not going to just sit here and wait to die!” Nari’s voice cracked as she yelled, her eyes brimming with tears of panic.

  “Nari, it’s going to be okay. We will work something out.” Casey lowered his voice. “Right now, we just need to take stock and make sure we are safe.”

  “We’re running on batteries for the lights and heat,” Aroha said. “The air filters are chemical, so we can keep breathing for a few days. We’ll probably die of hypothermia before then.”

  “Look, I know you’re scared. But we will get you both out of here safely,” Casey said. “Tyler, get some sleep. Same with the rest of you; we will all operate better after a few hours’ kip.”

  Tyler retreated to an empty bunk without comment.

  Nari went back to her bunk and curled up under blankets.

  “I should have been a lawyer. That is what my father wanted. Either a lawyer or a doctor like my brother,”

  “Nari’ll be okay. She’s the most intelligent person I have ever met,” Aroha said.

  “Don’t suppose either of you are secretly engineers?” Casey asked.

  Aroha flashed a weak grin. “No, sorry. Completely useless.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, neither making eye contact.

  “I-I’m sorry about your brother,” Casey managed after the silence grew uncomfortable.

  “You said that back in Lyttelton.”

  “Well yeah, but I was drunk.”

  “You could have mentioned that you were going on this expedition at the time.”

  “Really drunk,” Casey added.

  “I don’t normally do that, you know. Fall into bed with some random stranger.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, well… I just don’t.”

  “One night stands are one thing, it does get awkward when you find yourselves on a research ship the next day, though.”

  “Christ, does it ever.” Aroha looked away again.

  “Look, we had a good time. You were okay with it, weren’t you?”

  “Of course, I’m not saying you did anything uninvited. I just… it was just weird.”

  Casey grinned in spite of himself.

  “I don’t mean like that,” Aroha blushed. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

  Casey found a bottle of water and an energy bar. He ate while the others slept. The image of Kelly’s eyes flaring wide with agonized shock appearing in front of him when he closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 9

  Chatham Rise South Pacific Ocean, Longitude 44° S, Latitude 176° W. 400 meters below the surface.

  Tyler woke to the sound of water dripping and then blinked as a cold drop splatted on his face. Rolling off the bunk, he looked up. A narrow snake-like line of water ran down the curved wall; it appeared to be coming from a seam in the insulation.

  “Ah shit,” he muttered.

  “Whazzit?” Aroha said from her bunk across the small room.

  “Water’s coming in from somewhere,” Tyler whispered.

  Aroha kicked off her blankets and hurried over to peer up at the ceiling.

  “Shit,” she agreed.

  “I’ll suit up, go out, and see if I can find any more cracks. The patching I did might not be enough.”

  “Where’s Casey?” Aroha looked around the small spherical room, checking he wasn’t lurking in the shadows.

  “I dunno, maybe he went out already?”

  “What’s going on?” Nari peered down at them over the edge of the second tier bunk.

  “Nothing.” Aroha gave Tyler a warning glance. He shrugged and headed off to the dive chamber.

  “Where’s Casey?” Nari asked as she climbed down to the floor.

  “He went out for milk,” Tyler replied.

  “The sphere is leaking?” Nari pulled on extra layers of dry clothing, her breath misting in the air.

  “Yes,” Aroha agreed. “Tyler is going out to check the damage and see if he can patch it.”

  “I always thought I would want to be buried at sea. Not like this, though. I wanted to be cremated first, then have my ashes scattered.” Nari swept her dark hair out of the collar of her jacket.

  “Nobody is going to die.”

  “We are already dead,” Nari replied with a cold certainty.

  *

  Tyler closed the steel door behind him, but left it unlocked. Casey sat on an upturned storage crate at the edge of the dive entrance. He stared into the water and didn’t look up when Tyler approached.

  “Hey, boss. You okay?”

  “She’s right you know.” Casey’s eyes reflected the light shining off the water. “We are dead. We can’t use compressed air and surface without decompression. The return would have been long and slow anyway, even with the dive bell.”

  Tyler nodded; dying seemed like something that happened to other people. It had an abstract sense to it. Someone would rescue them and then this would just be a great story to tell chicks at the pub.

  “Someone’ll come and find us, aye?”

  Casey looked up, his expression pale and drawn. “No.”

  “We can rig a big set of tanks, enough to breathe during a decompression dive. Regular stops, should take a few hours to get up there.”

  Casey shook his head. “You reach the surface, then what? Swim to New Zealand? Or go the other way, Chatham Islands?”

  “Let off a flare, there’s fishing boats and shit.”

  “Even if you did get there and it’s not blowing a bloody storm, shark’s will come and have you before anyone sees your flare.”

  “Nah, you said that sharks are harmless.” Tyler grinned, sensing his boss was joking with him.

  “I was wrong,” Casey said. “I was really fucking wrong.”

  A cold fist clenched in Tyler’s gut.

  Casey’s hands were shaking and his eyes were shining. “There’s some fucked-up shit going on out there. I keep thinking I have to go out again. Go out and find a way to get a signal to the surface. Keep us all safe and get everyone home. But every time I blink, I see Kelly from the ship. I see her face when the sharks got her.”

  “Sharks?” Tyler looked at the circular pool that marked the border between the habitat and the ocean. “I thought she was like, injured or drowned or something.”

  “Nah, mate. Sharks tore her to pieces, right in front of me.”

  “Charlie, too,” Tyler whispered. “Took him right there. You going to tell the girls?”

  Casey sprang to his feet. “Of course I’m not fucking telling them. You keep your fucking mouth shut, too. Understand?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Tyler backed away in the narrow space. The water next to him rippled and a surge washed over his feet.

  A long grey shape swam under the habitat, the smooth and graceful motion of a shark that vanished from view a second later.

  “You think they are hunting us maybe?” Tyler’s eyes were wide with speculation.

  “They’re sharks, Tyler. Sharks don’t hunt people. That’s lions or polar bears or something.”

  “That was not a fucking polar bear.”

  �
�Keep your damned voice down.” Casey checked the door into the main chamber. “Suit up, there are more leaks in the spheres and we need to see how bad it is.”

  “I know.” Tyler lifted his chin. “I told Aroha I would see if I could patch it.”

  Casey nodded. “Good plan. You fix it, I’ll watch for man-eating sharks.”

  “Do we have any more underwater patches?” Tyler asked. “I found one box and underwater epoxy resin seemed to do the job.”

  Casey looked around the cramped chamber. “There should be more around here somewhere. Of course, if we had a fully equipped and supported surface team, we could weld it.”

  “Think it will hold?” Tyler shivered as he pulled on the cold neoprene drysuit.

  “Doesn’t matter. As long as it gives us another day or a few hours. Wait for me here.” Casey yanked the door open and went inside the habitat.

  “Everything okay?” Aroha asked. Her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea.

  “Yeah, just gearing up to patch the leak.” Casey twisted the locking handle on the secondary hatch that led to the next sphere. As he cracked the seal, the rim of the door immediately sprayed water in a high-pressure fountain, only the remaining latch preventing it from exploding inwards.

  “Shit!” Casey set his feet and pressed against the tons of seawater trying to pour through the millimeter gap. His ears popped as the pressure changed. Aroha dropped her cup and ran to help. Together, they leaned on the door until Casey could wind the lock shut.

  “I guess the leak is worse than we thought,” Casey said, wiping the salt water from his face.

  “We should check the other compartments again,” Aroha suggested.

  “No!” Nari yelled from her position on the high bunk. “If they are all flooded, you will kill us.”

  “She’s got a point,” Casey agreed. “I’ll go outside and check if there are bubbles or stuff being sucked into the spheres.”

  Aroha leaned in close. “You need to get us out of here. Billy’s injured. Nari’s not coping, and I am shit-scared.”

  Casey nodded. “It’ll be okay.”

  Her expression said she did not believe him, which was fine with Casey; he didn’t feel confident either.