Fathomless

by Greig Beck

  “Jaack.” She continued to stare over the side.

  Jack was breathing hard, pulling the water back furiously now. “Keep – paddling – almost – there.”

  She gritted her teeth, and hesitated, not wanting to put her hands back in, Abby watched her, eyes wide in the dark.

  “Damn it.” Her heart hammered, and every part of her body and mind screamed not to do it, but she still dug her arm in deep, looking over the side again. Something else passed underneath them, and something else, and she was about to call again, when more of the objects appeared – rocks, weed, and darting fish as the water became shallower.

  Looking up, she saw they were only a few dozen feet from a rocky shore line, this one unlike the last, did not start as a cliff face, but a gradual shallowing like a normal beach.

  In another moment, her fingers struck gravel and the raft grounded. Jack immediately jumped free, dragging the raft and them with it, up onto the dark beach.

  The three of them crawled free, and lay on their backs, breathing hard. He turned to her, and grinned. “Next time you’ve got a job, please lose my number.”

  She looked back, sharing the joke. “And I forgot to mention; you don’t get paid until you get us out.”

  “There’s pay?” Jack laughed then, and in the next moment all three of them were laughing uncontrollably, relief bursting from them in waves. The sound bouncing away to repeat countless times in the monstrous cavern.

  Cate sat up first, and smacked dry lips, for the first time feeling a thirst that made her throat rasp and head pound. She bet Jack and Abby were the same; they’d need to drink soon, or be in trouble. She grinned again. In trouble? In more trouble, she adjusted.

  She picked up a pebble and tossed it at an army of small blue crabs that marched like a wave along the shoreline, stopping now and then to pick at small mosses and feeding them into their constantly moving mouths.

  Jack got to his feet with a groan, and walked up the beach. He stopped and stood with his hands on his hips, looking around. “This is as close as we’re going to get.” He lifted a single finger, pointing upwards. “Heceta Island – thatta way.”

  He turned back to the cliff face, but then stopped and stared. “Well, well, looks like this is the place.” He turned back to them. “Cate, Abby, look here…”

  They crowded closer.

  “Abby, switch your light on.”

  Instead she took the light band from her head and held it out. “You guys are getting me out of here, so you lead – take it.”

  Cate shrugged, took it from her and switched it on, the brighter beam illuminating the cave wall for dozens of feet in either direction.

  The cave drawings were the same as the last they’d encountered, but showed more of the story and struggle the people had endured down on this dark sea. Many figures rowed to the shores, this time dragging a giant shark by the tail, dozens of spears sticking from its body. There were also more peoples coming out of a crack in the wall, and at first, Cate thought they were greeting them, until she saw the next tableau of arrows being fired at the newly arrived party.

  “Turf war,” Cate said softly.

  “Looks like it, but more importantly, what it says is, this is where the fishermen came ashore with their prize. Unfortunately, the Heceta Island natives weren’t exactly welcoming.” He shined his own rapidly-diminishing light over the scenes. “Many tribes worshipped sharks. And the Megalodon would have been the ultimate shark god.”

  “And the Nantouk killed one,” Abby said.

  Jack lifted his light to the depiction of the place the new figures had emerged – the cave opening. He moved the light from the drawing to the cave opening on the cliff wall – the shape was exactly the same. “I feel good about this.”

  “But there are no natives on Heceta Island,” Abby said. “I don’t think there’s ever been.”

  “Not now. But what about twenty, thirty, fifty thousand years ago?” He stepped closer. “I’m no expert, but these are very old – stone age, maybe?”

  “Yes, late Pleistocene, I think,” Abby said. “We see a lot of cave art in geological excavations. And you’re right, this could be anything between thirty and fifty thousand years old.”

  “That’s a lot of time to have passed,” Cate said.

  “Not geologically,” Abby said. “That’s like yesterday on the geo-clock.”

  Cate nodded. “I’d agree, if this area wasn’t prone to earthquakes.”

  Abby sighed. “Yeah, there is that.”

  Jack turned back to the beach, his eyes on the crabs. “Well, if those peoples were able to come down and go back up, then goddamn so will we. But first, we need something in our bellies.”

  They all turned to the wave of crabs. Cate hated the thought of trying to make a meal of the tiny living creatures, but her stomach growled loudly, and she knew she’d eat as many as she could catch.

  * * *

  Cate spat more crab shell onto the ground. It reminded her of when you had a fried egg, and managed to score the shard of eggshell between your teeth – except this was twice as hard and unyielding. In the end, she gave up trying to remove the minuscule amounts of meat, and swallowed everything down.

  She spat again and looked up, and then across at the cave wall. There was a vast rent in the cave wall, disgorging tumbled boulders to the shoreline. Some were rounded, almost looking melted together as if the cliff face had vomited the stone down into the water.

  The cave looked to only extend in about fifty feet. “Doesn’t go in very far,” Cate said, feeling her optimism dip.

  “No, but that’s not the direction we want to go,” Jack said. “We see where it leads.”

  She nodded, and looked back over her shoulder at the sea. It was still as glass, just some vapor rising from the bath-warm water. She couldn’t shake the feeling something was gliding past, frustrated now that they had escaped.

  “Yes, we see where it leads.” She continued to watch the water. “I’m finished with sea travel for a while,” she added softly.

  “Let’s do this.” Jack started off, followed by Abby.

  Cate gave the water one last look. Anger flared, as she tried to see beneath its surface. “Fuck you.” She turned away and followed Abby and Jack into the cave.

  CHAPTER 20

  Alaskan Department of Natural Resources

  – Geological Resources Division

  Sonya’s stomach knotted from impatience as David Meltzer, their chief geologist, pulled yet another map up on his screen showing colored images of Alaskan geological striations. She paced.

  “Thank you, Dr Meltzer, that’s all very interesting, but if I needed to reach a destination below ground quickly, how and where would you recommend I do it?”

  He clasped his fingers together as he watched her move around his office. “As I said at the beginning of our meeting, you could excavate, which by traditional means would take between a few weeks to months. This all depends on the geology of course, which is why I was showing you the different morphological blends along the western coast.” He looked at her over his glasses. “Was this too much detail for your movie?”

  “A little, it’s a balance thing; we need accuracy, but it doesn’t have to be so granular.” Sonya forced a smile. “The script calls for us being able to get down there quickly.”

  “How quickly?” he tilted his head.

  “Days, hours would be better?”

  He snorted. “If you really wanted to accelerate that process, then I would suggest a targeted explosive charge.” He raised his eyebrows. “The military has significant ground-penetrating capabilities – take you down a thousand feet in a single blow, I understand.” He smiled.

  Sonya’s gaze was flat. “And what would that do to someone a thousand and one feet below that detonation?”

  He smoothed his tie. “Yes, I see, give them a bit of a headache, I would imagine. But this is fiction you’ll be shooting, right?”

  “Of course. It’s that bal
ance thing again. I’m looking for something fast, but a little less… lethal.” She paced again.

  “You could halve the job, I suppose. You could travel down via one of the many caves. Alaska is famous for them. Meet them half way, so to speak.”

  Sonya paused and turned. “Go on.”

  “Well, you suggested your area of interest was the western coast. We have numerous caves along that geo-ridge; in fact hundreds.”

  “I like it; narrow it down to deep ones only, please.” Sonya sat again.

  He nodded. “There are over fifty that drop below two hundred feet.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” She stared. “But deeper.”

  Meltzer closed his eyes and steepled his fingers over his belly as he spoke. “Well, there is the Mossy Abyss under Dell Island that runs to four hundred. Then there is the Snowhold and also the El Capitan Pit that both fall to around six hundred and fifty feet – that’s deep.” He peeked at her, as though checking she was still listening. Satisfied, he leant back, closing his eyes once again.

  “And not forgetting the real biggie, the Viva Silva Cave on Heceta Island. Now that goes all the way down to eight hundred feet, and is fully accessible all the way. That’d be my choice.”

  She put her hand on his leg, and his eyes popped open. “Dr Meltzer, where exactly is the Viva Silva in relation to Baranof Island?”

  His eyes bulged slightly, as he looked from her hand to her face. “Very close actually, only about fifty miles. It’s closed now, but—”

  “Thank you.” Sonya was up and out of his office before he could say another word.

  CHAPTER 21

  The booming thump made everyone freeze on the drill ship. Captain Boris Gorkin’s round eyes jumped to his Chief Engineer, Olaf Kozlov, and saw that the man’s face was drained of color. Both men knew what the sound could mean, but still they waited, perhaps hoping it was anything but what they feared most.

  The next sound was like the tearing of a titan’s sailcloth, and its vibrations passed through the ocean, the ship, and then tickled the soles of their feet. It was immediately drowned out by the seismic alarms competing with the drill-shaft stability warnings from the control room.

  Kozlov shook his head. “It is breaking apart.”

  “It has to hold; it has to.” Gorkin spoke through hard-gritted teeth. He moved to grab Kozlov in one huge hand and shake him. “Fix it… do something.” The man was supposed to be his expert, and was paid a fortune. Now he wanted to freeze up when he was needed the most. Gorkin shook him again.

  Kozlov grabbed at Gorkin’s hand, twisting. “Drop the shaft rods; we need to get out of here.” He looked about to scream and his eyes were round and wet. “The seabed is collapsing for miles; there is nothing we can do. We’ll be swamped.”

  Gorkin erupted, shaking the man until his eyes rolled in his head. “Bastard! I’ll lose everything.” His turned left then right, indecision wracking him. He held onto to his engineer’s shirtfront. “No, we’re staying, we’re miles from the penetration site.” He grimaced. “We drop those shafts and we’re finished.”

  Senchov’s mouth worked and then twitched up into an insane grin. “Concrete… we can pump concrete down to plug it; create a seal.”

  The next sound was like a thousand thunderstorms just over the horizon. But both men knew the storm was coming from somewhere much closer – beneath them. The Viktor Dubynin was tugged hard in the water as if its wrist-thick anchor cables were like fishing lines that had each hooked a massive fish.

  The drill shaft snapped then, like a cannon shot, making every alarm, horn and bell scream, ring and roar in warning and compete for the honor of splitting the eardrums of the entire crew.

  Kozlov broke free and raced up to the deck. Gorkin followed. The ocean boiled, sizzled and popped like hot oil in a pan as if there was a fire lit below the deep, dark, cold water of the Bering Sea. Then an almighty thump followed by a shock wave travelled over the surface, which was immediately followed by the horizon becoming ragged and indistinct.

  Kozlov let his arms drop to his sides. “The subterranean body of water has broken through.”

  Gorkin turned, screaming orders. “Drop the cables, hard to starboard, full speed ahead.” He raced to the bridge room.

  * * *

  Kozlov gripped the railing, his teeth showing, and his fingers so tight on the cold steel they would have ached if he could feel anything. The engineer couldn’t drag his eyes from the thing that rose in the distance. It continued to climb, blotting out the sun, and then the sky itself. This monster was not a wall, but a cold mountain peak, rising hundreds of feet into the air and moving out in every direction like a mushroom, widening, and gathering speed. For now, it looked like it was coming at them in horrifying slow motion. But in reality, it was devastatingly fast and would soon be travelling at around two hundred miles per hour.

  The Viktor Dubynin turned hard, the side of the ship dipping as it tried to flee the impossible show of nature’s power. Kozlov grinned, and then began to giggle. That fool Gorkin; didn’t he know? They didn’t need a ship, they needed a damn helicopter.

  A breeze blew up, a pressure front being pushed before the spreading mountain that was rapidly becoming a range of mountains. The ship started to rise up its face, higher, and higher, the angle of the deck going from horizontal, to near vertical in a few moments.

  Kozlov wrapped arms and legs around the cold steel railing as the ship was turned sideways. With the sunlight blotted out, darkness fell over him and he looked down to the ocean far below. Impossibly, beneath him, there were seagulls flying for their life to try and beat the wall of water bearing down on them.

  Finally, when the ship was at the crest, they began to tumble down the face of the wall of water. Kozlov let go then.

  * * *

  The Megalodon had cruised along the edge of the rock shelf where the small creatures had fled. It had tasted them, and found them to its liking. But its huge bulk made it ever hungry and it wanted many more.

  The water in this area shallowed too quickly for it to get closer and it remained farther out in the dark water. Moments ago it had lifted its head above the surface, its cold dark eyes scanning the rocks for any movement – there was nothing – it had lost sight of them for now. However, above its cavernous maw, the lateral pores in its sensitive snout still detected their tiny footfalls on the rocks that sent the vibrations out into the water.

  The Megalodon’s lifespan was long, much longer than that of its closest cousin the Great White Shark, and it could be patient. It could wait hours, days, or even weeks for the creatures to return. But moving into this area of the subterranean sea it had detected something else in the water. Far away it sensed miniscule movements – strange, constant, but getting louder as if something was approaching. It could be food, or it could be a threat.

  With a few flicks of its huge tail it accelerated towards the new sensation. The more it travelled, the more the vibration increased in intensity. It was driven now by instinct – the strange sound might have been some creature in distress, and for the monstrous shark, that was impossible to ignore.

  The Megalodon increased its speed, swimming hard now, and moving its massive torpedo-shaped bulk through the water at thirty-five knots, or just on forty miles per hour. Other creatures, some huge themselves, sped from its path, and were perhaps relieved it was not hunting them that day.

  It caught up to the strange, bulbous creature that gave off a distinctive hum, and came up from the deep fast. It circled first, using all its senses to see, hear and taste the slow moving beast. There was little sign that the thing was edible, but its presence was a challenge that could not be ignored – it attacked.

  The shell was too hard to crack, and then the thing defended itself inflicting pain and causing the Megalodon to spit it out. The shark circled as the thing sank slowly, motionless but not dead. Inside the shell it could detect the flutter of tiny heartbeats.

  It prepared for another
charge, when above it there came another maddening sound that seemed to come from within the stone roof itself. The Megalodon’s movements became ever more frenzied as something ground its way from the rock to poke down into the water. The massive eighty-ton, territorial beast accelerated to attack the new enemy.

  It struck the end of the drill, further cracking the already weakened ceiling. Veins ran from the impact site in all directions, and then like some sort of colossal lid, it lifted away. It didn’t collapse and rain rocks down upon it, but instead the sheets of granite and silt were blown upwards by the subterranean pressure of the hidden sea.

  The warm water rushed to the cold, rising rapidly and taking everything with it. The current created was irresistible, even for the sixty-five-foot giant. The Megalodon and everything around it, was caught in the torrent and dragged upwards. It was drawn higher and higher, and its home of tropical darkness, suddenly became freezing cold and strangely light.

  Most of the other creatures sucked up with it died immediately, not able to deal with the rapid change in pressure, temperature and even light waves. But the Megalodon was a creature that had come from a line that had existed for four hundred million years, and could tolerate all manner of extremes.

  When the rushing maelstrom had subsided, and then collapsed behind it, the monstrous shark found it wasn’t in its own world anymore.

  CHAPTER 22

  Cate sat for a moment and squeezed her hands into fists to quell the throbbing. Her fingers ached, her palms were raw, and even though she had short nails, she was sure every single one of them was broken and ripped. She leaned back, letting her head rest against the cool stone and sucked in humid air. The climbing had been difficult, and there were no easy tunnels with nice flat cave floors leading upwards. Instead, there had been a torturous climb up one narrow chute after the other.