The Squid Slayer

by Jack Heath

  Sarah needed air. She looked around, and saw that Yvette was already back up at the surface. Sarah followed, lungs burning.

  When her head exploded into the open air Yvette was already talking. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  Sarah nodded, too breathless to speak.

  ‘The cargo ship that crashed here?’ Yvette said. ‘Six years ago?’

  ‘The Quirinus Two,’ Sarah said. ‘How come we’ve never seen it before?’

  Yvette looked around. ‘I guess we’ve never come so far out before. And the water is hardly ever this clear.’

  Sarah thought of the strange light roaming the ocean floor. She had assumed it was the ghost of a drowned gold miner. But they would haunt the mine, wouldn’t they? Didn’t ghosts tend to stay close to where they died?

  If she’d seen the spirit of a sailor who once crewed this ship, that would make more sense. She trembled with excitement.

  ‘Let’s go for a closer look!’ she said. ‘Maybe we can get inside.’

  ‘What?!’ Yvette looked horrified. ‘It will be full of … skeletons and stuff.’

  ‘No. The sailors were never found, remember? The company’s divers searched the wreck after it went down. It’s empty.’

  ‘So why are you so keen to get inside?’

  Sarah didn’t tell her it was another ghost hunt.

  ‘Please!’ Sarah begged. ‘Just think, you might see bits of the engine.’

  Yvette hesitated. She was just as obsessed with mechanical things as Sarah was with ghosts. She was clearly tempted.

  ‘All right,’ Yvette said finally. ‘But let’s be careful, OK? I don’t want to get trapped and run out of air, or get attacked by a giant squid.’

  Sarah grinned. ‘You didn’t bring your flagpole.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Sarah took five deep breaths—she wanted to be able to get as far down as possible before she had to turn around—and then she dived down into the shadows of the ocean.

  As she descended towards the shipwreck, she spotted the damage to the side. The rocks had dealt the killer blow to the hull, gutting it like a pig. Frayed metal buckled outward from the gash. The ship must have scraped past the reef at high speed, which made no sense—the lighthouse should have given them enough warning to slow down, at least. The ship was hiding secrets.

  And when it sank, it sank hard. The bow of the ship crumpled against the ocean floor. The safety rails on the deck were a twisted mess. Every porthole had a ring of shattered glass, like teeth.

  It was by far the coolest thing Sarah had ever seen in her life.

  She spent a few precious seconds taking all this in and then swam towards the gash. Beyond it, the darkness was so thick that the ship might as well have been full of squid ink.

  The image sent a shudder up her spine. Could there be another colossal squid down there? Surely not. The marine expert said they were rare.

  Sarah slipped into the gap.

  She had expected her glow-in-the-dark swimsuit to light up the inside of the ship, and it did—but only a little. Just enough to reveal a jumble of warped silhouettes. She swam past something that might have been a table and brushed against something else that looked like a bucket. Part of a PA system hung in the water ahead of her, the speaker dented and the wires nibbled away. Behind her, Yvette touched a piece of floating debris, turning it around and around, perhaps trying to work out its purpose.

  A panel of buttons was barely visible beneath a layer of barnacles. This had been a control room, once. There were no ghosts that Sarah could see, but once again she had the feeling of being watched.

  She pushed across the room to the far wall, where an opening ahead led deeper into the ship. The further in she got, the longer it would take to get out. But she felt like she had at least another minute’s worth of air in her lungs.

  Something grabbed her.

  She spun to face Yvette, whose eyes were wide and frantic. She must be nearly out of breath. She pointed upwards.

  Sarah nodded and shooed her away. Yes, you go up, I’ll meet you there.

  Yvette looked like she wanted to argue, but she couldn’t wait any longer. So she swam back out into the open ocean and disappeared upwards, leaving Sarah alone in the sunken ship.

  She turned back to face the inner doorway. It was wide and square, as though designed for flat-bed trolleys rather than people. Her swimsuit wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the interior without going in.

  She wasn’t afraid of ghosts, but like all divers she was afraid of getting trapped and running out of air. Still, when fear battled curiosity in Sarah’s head, curiosity always won.

  She pictured her heart beating slower and slower, taking longer and longer to carry the blood through her body, so the oxygen already in her lungs would be enough.

  She swam into the gap.

  The explosion was sudden but silent. Something swept past her head, scraping her face with cold flesh. It wasn’t until she turned to follow the movement that she realised she had disturbed a school of fish. Perhaps they lived there, in the pitch-black cavern.

  Sarah turned. A little light filtered down through a smashed porthole way, way up above. With that and the swimsuit she could see that she was in some kind of corridor. Except because the ship was on its side, it was more like being in a lift shaft.

  Sarah’s eyes widened as she examined the walls. She wasn’t sure what she had expected to see, but it wasn’t this.

  Cages.

  Hundreds of cages, lining the walls as high and low as she could see. There were no bunks inside, and the bars were thick and close together. Fat padlocks hung from each bolt. These were the kind of cages you might transport lions or gorillas in.

  And every single door gaped open.

  LIVING IN THE DARK

  Sarah could hardly believe it. The stories were true.

  The cargo of the Quirinus Two had been animals after all.

  She was inside a floating zoo which had sunk there six years ago.

  It was good that one of the crew members had taken the time to unlock all the enclosures before the ship sank.

  Sarah hated to think of all the animals drowning in the dark without at least some kind of chance to survive.

  But no bodies had been found, human or otherwise. What had happened to the animals?

  Her lungs ached. She had to leave, right now. She needed air.

  Suddenly the vertical corridor darkened. Sarah looked up. The light from the distant porthole had vanished. Something had blocked it.

  An unnerving thought ran through her mind. Perhaps the animals hadn’t been let out because the ship had crashed. Perhaps the ship had crashed because someone let the animals out.

  The water muffled everything, but she could hear a sound. A soft clatter, like claws on steel.

  Surely nothing could be alive down here. Not after all this time. Right?

  Another sound. A tap-tap-tapping, closer every second.

  Sarah’s nerve broke. She turned and swam back into the control room. As she powered past the control panel, she noticed that one of the levers was marked ‘main throttle’. It was pushed all the way forward.

  Something had attacked these sailors so fast that no-one had time to hit the brakes. Perhaps they were all dead hours or days before the cargo ship had even hit the reef.

  Sarah’s lungs were on fire. She had to get back to the surface.

  But she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

  She turned for one last look—

  And froze with terror as something glided past the doorway to the corridor with the cages.

  Something as big as her—no, bigger.

  Something with tentacles as well as multi-jointed legs.

  Something with a forest of spines protruding from its armour-plated shoulders.

  Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to see her. It passed the opening and disappeared from view.

  Sarah plunged out of the ship into the open ocean and threw herself upward
s. She had never stayed under for so long before. The monster she had seen in shadows was not as frightening as her sudden, powerful need for air.

  She kicked and swam, grabbing the water and pulling it down beneath her. Darkness crawled in at the edges of her vision. If she blacked out now, she would drown.

  Stay awake! she ordered herself. Just a few more seconds.

  The shimmering daylight was getting brighter above, but her limbs had become weak and floppy. The last of her precious air dribbled upwards from her slack lips. She was—

  Out! Her head breached the surface of the water unexpectedly. She made a sound like a braying donkey as she sucked in a greedy lungful of air.

  ‘You scared the heck out of me!’ Yvette shouted in her face.

  Sarah couldn’t speak. She’d inhaled some of the salty spray along with the air, and now she was having a coughing fit.

  ‘Do you have any idea what it was like?’ Yvette demanded. ‘Floating up here, waiting for you, wondering if you were dead? Wondering how I’d tell your mum?’

  ‘There’s a monster,’ Sarah gasped. ‘I saw it inside the ship.’

  ‘I—what? What are you talking about?’

  ‘The ship was full of cages,’ Sarah said. ‘All open. I think it was transporting monsters but they got out and killed everyone. That’s why the ship crashed. It totally makes sense. And then I saw something with legs and tentacles and—’

  ‘Legs and tentacles?’ Yvette said doubtfully.

  ‘Yes! And it was huge. Like, as big as a cow.’

  Sarah could see what Yvette was thinking. How long could a person go without oxygen before they started to get brain damage?

  ‘Hey!’ Sarah said. ‘Did I say you were crazy when you told me you saw an army of spiders?’

  ‘I didn’t say you were crazy,’ Yvette said.

  ‘No, but you were thinking it.’ Sarah looked down into the shimmering water. Something was moving beneath her. Just seaweed drifting in the currents? Or something else?

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, and paddled back towards the houseboat.

  KOOKY KARLA

  Sarah couldn’t convince Yvette of what she had seen—in fact, as they clambered back up onto the houseboat and dried themselves off, Yvette almost convinced her that she hadn’t seen anything. It had been dark, and she had been deprived of oxygen. A shadow could be mistaken for a monster under those circumstances.

  ‘I’ll get a picture of it,’ Sarah said, ‘with my underwater camera.’

  Yvette prodded Sarah’s chest with her finger. ‘You’re not going down there again.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘What are you, my mum?’

  ‘Not without me,’ Yvette said. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Promise me. Or I won’t be your friend anymore.’

  Sarah gasped. It should have sounded like a childish threat. But Yvette looked deadly serious. The thought of not having her best friend was much more frightening to Sarah than the thought of being eaten by a monster.

  ‘Promise me,’ Yvette repeated.

  ‘I promise,’ Sarah muttered.

  ‘You promise what?’

  ‘That I won’t go back down to the sunken ship without you.’

  Yvette hugged her. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.’

  ‘Now you do sound like my mum,’ Sarah grumbled. But she had to blink back the tears stinging the corner of her eyes.

  Yvette let go of her and wiped her own nose with the back of her hand. ‘I should go,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t want to stay for dinner?’

  ‘The way your mum cooks? No thanks.’

  Sarah laughed. Yvette disappeared into the bathroom to get changed. When she re-emerged, she grabbed her schoolbag and headed out the front door. She waved goodbye as she swung onto her bike and rolled away along the pier. Sarah missed her already.

  When Mum came home, Sarah was drying out in the sun on the rear balcony reading The Call of Cthulhu. It was surprisingly easy to read for such an old story, but it seemed to be taking a very long time to get to the monster. Maybe readers in the old days were more patient. Less busy.

  ‘Sorry I ran late, so much for my early finish!’ Mum called out. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Good,’ Sarah said. Her recent adventures were still rolling around in her mind. She was suddenly exhausted. She didn’t have the energy to tell Mum anything yet.

  ‘Karla has invited us over for dinner,’ Mum said. ‘Are you keen?’

  Sarah perked up. ‘Kooky Karla?’

  Mum popped her head out onto the balcony. ‘You are not to call her that when we’re over there.’

  ‘How about Quirky Karla?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Quaint Karla?’

  Mum sighed. ‘Do you want to go, or not?’

  ‘I’m already doing my hair,’ Sarah said, hopping up and disappearing into the bathroom.

  She changed out of her swimmers, which were now bone dry from the late afternoon sun. Mum grabbed an unopened bottle of soft drink from the fridge. The sun was setting by the time they emerged from the front door, locked it behind them, and walked along the pier to Karla’s houseboat.

  It wasn’t as wide or square as the one Sarah lived in. The sloped sides, looming mast and outboard motor all made it look more like a proper boat. Karla rarely left it, but the boat often left the dock. Karla took it out past the headlands, where the fish were bigger.

  She had some kind of deal with a local fish and chip shop—every two days the owner would come over to see what she had caught. He must buy a lot from her. Enough that Karla could afford to fuel her boat and occasionally buy something else to eat that wasn’t fresh fish.

  ‘Sarah!’ she bellowed loudly. ‘How delightfully marvellous to see you again. Get over here, let me get a look at you.’

  Karla was a stout woman with muscular legs and white circles around her eyes where the sunglasses had protected her skin. She always wore shorts, sandals and singlet tops which left her prosthetic hand exposed. It was a hook, but it didn’t look like a pirate hook—it was split down the middle so Karla could grab things.

  Sarah had always assumed Karla lost her hand in a fishing accident. A flailing line reinforced with steel threads. An exposed propeller in turbulent waters. An unexpected collision between the boat and the dock while Karla’s arm hung over the side. Or perhaps she had chased a big fish all the way to the South Pole and lost her hand to frostbite.

  When Sarah first met her, she had found it hard not to stare at the hook, but these days she hardly noticed it. It was funny how unusual things could become normal after a while.

  Sarah let Karla ruffle her hair and squint at her. ‘You feeding this gal enough?’ Karla asked Mum.

  ‘Nope,’ Mum said cheerfully. ‘Lucky I have you to help.’

  ‘Help? “Help” is putting it mildly. Boy, have I got a treat for you tonight.’

  Karla led them into the houseboat. The shelves on the living room walls were covered with trinkets from Karla’s travels around the world—a ceremonial wooden knife, a leather sling, the withered jawbone of a shark. A thick candle was already sputtering on the table. There was no TV, computer or anything else which would have looked out of place in the eighteenth century.

  The kitchen, on the other hand, looked like it came from the future. The fridge, oven, dishwasher and microwave were all stainless steel, while the bench tops and utensils seemed to be made of tinted glass.

  A pot of immense proportions bubbled on a stainless steel stove.

  ‘Behold!’ Karla boomed. She lifted the lid off the giant pot.

  Sarah stood on her tiptoes to peer inside—and gasped …

  TEETH

  Mum leaned over. ‘My goodness! Is that . .?’

  ‘The fish and chip shop didn’t want it,’ Karla said, almost proudly. ‘Said it was too big. No-one would believe it was real.’

  ‘I don’t believe it’s real,’ Mum said. �
�It’s as big as a dog!’

  ‘A horse, even,’ Karla said. She was exaggerating, but Sarah was still amazed.

  Inside the cast-iron pot was a lobster. But not just any lobster. Its claws were as big as Sarah’s hands. The bulging brown shell shimmered under the boiling water. It looked like a fat leather handbag.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ Sarah asked. Spicy vapours filled the hot air. Her mouth was already watering.

  ‘Oh, the usual place,’ Karla said. ‘But I’ve never seen one this big. Sixteen kilos and not a gram less, it is. I’ll be eating the leftovers for a week.’

  ‘Not if we get there first,’ Sarah said.

  Karla patted her shoulder. ‘That’s the spirit. Help us set the table will you, love?’

  Sarah lined up the place mats around the candle and arranged plastic cutlery on top of folded napkins as Karla reached into the boiling water with her hook and lifted the lobster out. She let it drip for a while, then draped it onto the benchtop and cracked the shell with one stern whack of her hook.

  As she dug the tender flesh out with a big fork, Karla cheerfully told stories about her travels. The other day she had found an empty canoe bobbing on the water. When she called the coastguard, they said no-one had been reported missing, so she could keep it.

  This led her to the legend of the Mary Celeste.

  ‘It’s not just a legend!’ she insisted, ‘you can look it up!’

  The Mary Celeste was a ship which had been found floating on the high seas with no crew, no damage to the hull, and meals left half-eaten on plates. It was as if everyone on board had simply disappeared.

  ‘Not as spooky as it sounds,’ Mum said. ‘They used to cart barrels and barrels of explosive compounds around. If the fumes from one of them went bang in the middle of the night, the noise alone could make them abandon ship.’

  ‘Don’t spoil my fun,’ Karla said.