Beneath Wally darkness opened and spread, unfurling coils of lengthy tentacles. The idea that he was blacking out flashed through his mind, but the darkness was ridged with a series of jagged white spikes. No, not spikes – teeth.
A second jolt thundered through Wally’s body. He felt electricity dance up his legs and expand in his gut. He pushed thoughts of dying to the back of his head and kicked for the surface, but went nowhere. Wally kicked again. His legs stung from the impact, burned and protested as he urged them to move. Still, Wally went nowhere.
A thin tendril of red spiraled and danced by the corner of Wally’s mask. The crooked line expanded into a cloud and soon red filled all of Wally’s vision. He looked down, searching for the source.
Two ragged stumps swung back and forth, uselessly moving through the water. Strips of skin and meat dangled from the ruined limbs. Wally’s mind struggled to fit together what he was seeing. What could have done this? Why wasn’t the pain worse?
You’re in shock. The voice of Wally’s mother echoed inside his head. Something bit you and you’re going into shock. You need to swim. Keep swimming. You never should have gone swimming in the first place, but you must swim. I tried to tell you, Wally, but you just don’t listen. You just don’t –
The words were cut short as darkness curled around Wally. His mother’s voice had finally gone silent.
-11-
Lenny had to admit that the blue hole was beautiful. Things like art and nature typically did not appeal to his scientific mind. He did not like the randomness of nature or the blurred boundaries of artistic expression. No, Lenny’s mind craved order and sense. But even he had to admit that Dean’s Blue Hole was beautiful.
A white sand beach ringed around crystal clear water that sloped slowly towards the center where a massive circle of deep blue water shone like a sapphire. This was where his studies would begin. Dean’s Blue Hole plunged over six hundred feet below sea level. Most scientists believed that the water inside the blue hole was anoxic or lacked the oxygen to support life larger than bacteria, but Lenny knew better. The same scientists, who narrowly viewed the blue holes as simple depressions in the Earth’s crust, overlooked or ignored what they really were – caves and like many caves, they were connected.
The flow of seawater, warmed by its closeness to the deeper layers of the Earth, brought food, oxygen and the warmth needed to sustain life that was both ancient and new. As the people of Sunset Island had learned, the creatures living in these caves could be far larger than simple bacteria, not that many of them had survived to tell anyone about it.
Something fell from the back of one of the vans and thudded to the ground with a dull crack. Lenny groaned as he heard the interns cursing and blaming one and other.
“Just pick it up,” Lenny said. “I don’t care which one of you idiots dropped it, but for God’s sake, just pick it up and get it down to the beach.”
The other crates were already spread across the sand, open and ready to be unpacked. The soldiers patrolled the outer edges of the beach, ensuring that nosey tourists were encouraged to go for a swim somewhere else.
Cal shouted at the interns and pointed. They scuttled from one box to another, looking for whatever piece of equipment Cal demanded.
Lenny wandered past the interns and boxes to stare at the blue hole. It really was beautiful.
A series of large bubbles broke in the center of the hole. They were barely visible from the beach, but Lenny knew to watch for them. Some scientists claimed these bubbles were the result of subterranean tides. Lenny knew otherwise. Bubbles were the result of respiration, not the tides, at least not ones this big. Something was down there. Something he would have to deal with or kill before his plan could move forward.
“Cal?” Lenny asked.
“Already unpacking it,” Cal waved dismissively.
A small ROV submarine sat next to him in the sand.
“And?” Lenny snapped.
“Yeah, yeah,” Cal nodded.
A black nylon bag filled with what looked like tan bricks of clay, was set next to the ROV.
“Won’t this collapse the tunnels if we detonate it?” Cal asked. He nudged the bomb with his toe.
“Not if it’s done correctly,” Lenny answered. “Not if it’s done by me.”
-12-
The small building, really nothing more than a shed, sat on the end of one of the docks that bordered the Clarence Town harbor. Tyde had an address from the internet, but none of the clapboard structures had numbers. Eventually, and with a great deal of groaning from Wendy, Tyde found M & J Diving Adventures. He banged his fist against the door, but no one answered. Peering through one of the dingy windows Tyde saw that the one room building was empty. Diving gear was strewn about the inside, haphazardly piled along the walls. A boat that looked like it had seen its best days in the early 1970’s was moored to the end of the dock, bobbing gently in the waves that rolled in. The sun dipped into the ocean, turning the surface to stained glass.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t?” Tyde asked. He reached for Wendy and tried to pull her close, to wrap his arm around her, but she resisted. Tyde let his arm fall to his side.
“It looks like the last time we went for a cave dive…the last time we dove,” Wendy said. Her shoulders hitched. A few tears streaked down her face, falling to the rough planks of the dock and disappearing.
Tyde took a step forward. “Wendy, I…please. It was an accident. We need to let it go.”
“It’s okay,” Wendy wiped a hand across her face. “I’m sorry. I know. It’s okay.”
It was not okay, but Tyde nodded anyway. He wanted it to be okay, wanted everything to be okay, but it probably never would be. Some people might say that you could take a vacation from your problems, but Tyde knew the opposite was true – you took your problems on vacation, you took them everywhere.
“So where’s this guy Miles or whatever?” Wendy asked, deciding to change the subject.
“Milo,” Tyde corrected. “And I have no idea.”
“You looking for Milo or Jefferson?” a voice called from one of the adjacent docks. An old man wound a thick coil of rope around his arm and tossed it into a nearby boat.
“Yeah,” Tyde answered. “We were hoping to book a diving trip out to Dean’s. Do you know where Milo is?”
“Probably hiding out after today,” the old man said. “Got himself in trouble on a diving trip.”
“What kind of trouble?” Wendy asked. She came to stand beside Tyde. Her fingers slipped between his and gently squeezed. Tyde did not know if it was love or nerves. He did not care.
“Lusca trouble,” the old man said. “Worst kind of trouble there is around here, but I already said too much. He’ll be back around tomorrow and you can ask him yourself. I’m not one to talk about other people’s business.”
“What the heck is Lusca trouble?” Tyde asked, but the old man only waved his hand dismissively and turned back to tending to his boat.
“Lusca trouble?” Wendy repeated. “Is that some kind of local slang for drugs or something like that? I don’t want to go diving with a crack head. I don’t think a crack head would make a very good dive leader.”
Tyde snorted. “I don’t think a crack head makes a very good anything, besides a crack head, I guess.”
“It’s not funny, Tyde,” Wendy said. Her fingers slipped from his and fell to her side. Wendy turned and started walking back towards the town. “Let’s just go find somewhere to eat dinner.”
“Do you think we’ll have time to score some Lusca?” Tyde shouted as he ran to catch up with Wendy. “Maybe just a dime?”
“Maybe just a dime,” Wendy laughed. It was real laughter – the first Tyde had heard in a long time.
Tyde opened his mouth to say something, to try and keep Wendy laughing. But sometimes you just had to know to quit when you were ahead. Tyde closed his mouth and grabbed Wendy’s hand. She allowed him to take it.
A dull thud turned into the fanatic slamming in T
yde’s chest. He had missed this feeling. He had missed Wendy. Most of all he missed them.
-13-
Dinner was terrible, but blessedly short. Milo suffered through his mother’s nagging and Stan’s backhanded comments. Jefferson, busy inhaling food and enjoying a meal that did not come from a tin can, was no help. Milo nodded, grunted and chewed. This was how most meals went around his mother’s table. Milo imagined Norman Rockwell painting this dinner instead of his classic Americana one and almost snorted some partially chewed rice out his nose.
“What’s is so funny, Milo?” his mother asked. He could hear from her tone that a joke was not what she was after.
“Nothing,” Milo said between mouthfuls of food. His mother was many things, most of them being things Milo did not like, but he had to admit that she knew her way around a kitchen.
“Nothing?” Stan repeated, his brows arched and a wicked smile creeping across his face. He was always quick to suck up to their mother by picking on Milo.
“Okay, so it wasn’t nothing,” Milo admitted. “I was thinking about the time in eighth grade when you had a stomach virus and Coach Wilkins made you climb the rope in gym class.”
“Shut up,” Stan said, dropping his fork to the table and coming to a half stand.
“Now, Milo,” their mother sighed. “Don’t talk about things like that at the dinner table.”
“You remember that, don’t you Stan?” Milo grinned. “Remember how you were sick, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try and set the school record? As I remember it, you got about three fourths of the way up the rope, sneezed and had explosive diarrhea.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Stan said. He glared at his brother.
“Coach Wilkins didn’t seem to think so,” Milo continued. “Didn’t look too happy either when it started raining chocolate pudding on the gym floor. I think you peeled the finish off the planks.”
“I did not!” Stan slammed his hands down on the table, causing the plates to jump and vibrate.
“Did so,” Milo laughed. “Peeled the varnish right off the wood. People started calling you Stanley Splats. You definitely set a school record that day, just not the one you had in mind.”
“Boys!” their mother cut in. “That’s enough. I don’t know which one to be more disgusted with right now.”
“Sorry,” Stan said. He hung his head as if getting caught in the middle of a cookie jar robbery.
“I thought we were just sharing family stories today,” Milo said, refusing to apologize. “Right, Stanley Splats?”
“You guys have sure got a lot of poop-related stories,” Jefferson laughed, flecks of food spattering across the table. “That’s not normal. You know that, right? A family history written with turds? Not right at all.”
Stan was around the table and shoving Milo into the wall before their mother had a chance to intervene. Milo laughed. Jefferson continued eating as if this was the most normal meal he had ever eaten. Maybe it was.
The radio on Stan’s shoulder crackled and a voice rattled through the small speaker.
“Stan, are you there?” the dispatcher asked.
Stan dropped Milo and picked up his radio. “I’m here. Go ahead.”
“Stan, Ms. Crain called in about Wally missing,” the dispatcher said.
“And?” Stan asked. “She does that at least three times a month. The kid is probably down on one of the beaches again. He’ll turn up.”
“That’s the thing Stan,” the dispatcher continued. “He did turn up on the beach…or at least some of him did.”
“Some?” Stan asked. “What beach?”
“One of the beaches in Turtle Cove,” the dispatcher answered. “I’m sure you’ll be able to tell which one.”
“Poor boy,” their mother muttered as she made the sign of the cross.
“It’s the Lusca,” Milo added.
“Go get in my car,” Stan said. “I’ll drop you off at the docks.”
“Okay,” Jefferson said, hoping to stop what he knew was coming next.
“Screw that,” Milo said. “We’re coming with you.”
-14-
Flying a seaplane for tourists was not where Craig Whitlock saw his life going. No one woke in the middle of the night at the age of seven and proclaimed that scrapping vomit off the floor of a yellow 1960’s seaplane was the meaning of their life. No, kids dreamt of being something heroic, something meaningful or at the very least something that paid well.
Craig’s life was none of these things. But he found a way to escape his vomit-encrusted existence – a way to free himself of the mundane and become something better. Granted, this path to freedom was somewhat illegal, but Craig figured it was not really all that different from his other job.
All he had to do was load a few large canvas bags onto his plane, fly them out into the middle of the ocean at night and unload them onto a waiting boat. Was it really all that different from flying tourists around on sightseeing tours? Either job really just came down to one thing – money. American money to be specific. Craig figured either way all he was doing was moving things around to get more of it.
The men told Craig not to look in the bags, but that only made him want to do it more. A quick peek inside one of the oversized green bags revealed bricks of equally green bills wrapped in plastic. A few of the other bags held white bricks, but they did not give Craig nearly the same feeling as the green ones.
He had finally made it. Sure, none of this money was his, but he always got paid as soon as he was back on the island. Craig never bothered to ask these men who they were or what they did because the truth was he did not care. Not one ounce. All he knew was that they paid well and this was his ticket to the life he deserved.
The GPS on the dashboard of the plane pinged as a dot appeared on the horizon of the screen. Craig watched the dot and tilted the controls of the plane to head towards it. He had done this a few times before and it was quickly becoming second nature.
The ping sounded again and the dot was closer – almost under him. Craig scanned the dark water below, looking for the strobe that usually marked the waiting boat. Nothing.
The metallic chime echoed again, this time the dot was directly under the plane. Maybe they had forgotten to turn the strobe on or maybe the batteries had died? Craig figured stranger things had probably happened. But if the GPS said this was where he was supposed to land, well that was where he was landing. The boat would be there. It always had before.
The plane skipped and bounced before the pontoons sunk into the water a little and pulled the plane down. Craig pulled the throttle back and turned in a tight circle.
“Where the hell is the boat?” he wondered.
A massive spotlight sat on the floor next to the driver’s seat. Craig remembered buying it because the box said it had something like the power of ten million candles. It seemed like a pretty stupid way to rate a spotlight. Honestly, who used candles anymore, anyway? But stupid rating or not, Craig knew one thing – the light was freaking bright. He used to use it for night fishing, luring sea life to the surface for easy pickings, but these days he used it to find darkly colored speed boats driven by angry, stoic men with strange accents and scary guns.
Right about now, Craig was kind of missing those angry men with their guns. Had something happened? Was he being set up?
No, Craig had always done his job and done it well. They had always been happy with him. There was no way they were going to kill one of the only seaplane pilots on the island. They needed him as much as he needed their money. It was that simple.
Still, there was no boat.
Craig checked the GPS again. The dot was almost next his plane. He climbed out onto the pontoon and shone the light across the water. Nothing.
Another ping. The dot was closer now. Closer still.
The plane rocked as the water beneath it grew darker and choppy. A massive shadow glided beneath the plane and circled around the pontoons. Craig tracked it with the beam
of his spotlight.
“No way,” Craig said, his voice high and giddy. “No fucking way. They have a submarine? That is so cool, so so cool.”
Craig bounced up and down on the plane’s pontoon like a child waiting for the bathroom. He had heard stories about some of these drug runners building or buying submarines, but they were always little tub-looking things and nothing like the massive shadow that glided beneath his plane. These guys were serious. They must have picked up an old Russian sub or something like that.
The shadow turned and dipped downwards, momentarily disappearing beneath the inky surface of the ocean.
“Hey,” Craig almost shouted. “Where are you going?”
As if in response, the shadow re-emerged a few hundred feet away from the plane. It was closer to the surface and heading directly towards Craig. Small waves rolled sideways as the shadow neared the surface and picked up speed. Foam sprayed and hissed.
Craig could not help but smile. This was going to be awesome.
-15-
The water within Dean’s Blue Hole was amazingly clear. Bits of sea life, drifted lazily in the weak currents like motes of dust trapped in an attic. Lenny figured that image was not too far off. Things were forgotten once they were put in an attic or crawlspace and the blue hole was no different.
There may have been a time when people remembered what once dwelled in these underwater caves, but those memories had softened and become legend and lore. Lenny had no interest in bedtime stories. He knew these things were real and contrary to what he told his government handlers, these creatures were why he was here. They were the true discovery to be made.
The government hacks were interested in a series of tunnels and caves that Lenny had convinced them had some degree of military application, but the truth was that Lenny made most of it up. Sure, there were blue holes scattered across the globe, and it was true that there was evidence to support the fact that they were connected. But true military value? Lenny had no idea. Maybe they could be used for that the purpose he had made up. Maybe not. He did not care either way. By the time the military realized he was full of crap, it would not matter.
RIP Tyde Page 4