by C. J. Waller
He still couldn’t see the bottom.
“This isn’t right,” he said.
“I know,” Piers said.
“What’s going on?”
“How would I know?” He raised a hand to the side of his mask. “Hey, Mags? You still there?”
There was no reply.
Now the tightness seized Paul’s throat. “Mags?” he croaked. “Mags? Are you there? Please reply.”
“Mags!” Piers all but yelled.
There was still no reply.
“That relay has a good five hundred foot range on it,” Paul said. “I should know, I paid for it. This loch, whilst deep, isn’t five hundred feet deep. She should be able to hear us. She should be able to reply-”
“Hey, man – calm down,” Piers broke in. They were treading water now, hanging in a black void, their headlamps the only light source. Even the little motes had disappeared. Panic gave Paul's throat another little squeeze. They weren't that deep – even inside, there should be something, some illumination, something filtering down. He dared to glance up.
Nothing.
“What the… Piers. Piers, look up. Where's the church?” He had to force the words out now. “What is going on? Just what the fuck is going on?”
“Some kind of light anomaly,” Piers said. He was trying to sound calm, but his rapid breathing gave away his true feelings. “Remember, we’re in a building, so light won’t necessarily filter in-”
“Light won’t necessarily filter in? What do you mean? It’s pitch black up there! No… no, we have to go now, get back up… something is not right, not right at all. Fuck this. That altar wasn't so far away. Hell, we could see it from the window! We need to get back to that and find our bearings. We need to know where we are.”
Something deeper than mere instinct drove Paul on. It had been his idea to go down here again, but now he was here, every bit of him screamed to get out. He kicked up, hoping he’d soon see something familiar, a carving, a part of the crenelated balustrade that ran around the raised gallery, even one of those defaced statues, anything that would allow him to find his bearings, but with each powerful kick of his legs, all he found was more darkness.
Panic bubbled through him, spreading to every part of him. He was lost. But how could he be lost? Sure, the church was big, but it wasn’t that big. He should have been able to swim across it in under a minute. Same went from floor to ceiling. He kicked again, muttering to himself, hoping that someone, anyone, would reply, but the relay remained stubbornly silent.
Something brushed up against his leg and he screeched. It echoed around his mask, intensifying it to the point of pain. He kicked out, randomly, wildly, trying to shake off imagined fingers of grasping unseen horrors, but it crept up his leg and managed to catch hold of a tiny fold in his wetsuit. His heart, already in high gear, kicked up a notch and he felt as if he might faint.
“Paul…”
Oh god, oh Christ, oh shitting fuck, it didn’t only have hold of him, it knew his name…
“P-Paul…”
Paul gibbered under his breath, twisting and turning, trying to shake off the thing that ensnared him. He batted at his leg the way he might a sudden spider, all panicky jerks and disgust, but it held on, dragging him down, down again into the indeterminate depths.
“P-Paul… please…”
He looked down, frantically scrabbling at his leg for his knife, but he stopped when he realised the horror was, in fact, Piers.
Piers’ face was white behind his mask, his eyes staring. He’d managed to grasp Paul’s suit with one hand; the other dangled, useless, behind him.
After that, Paul had no idea what he was looking at.
Whether it was because he couldn’t work out what had ensnared Piers due to him not being able to see it properly or whether it was because he simply couldn’t – or wouldn’t – comprehend it, he’d never know. The darkness had gathered beneath them, or more correctly, gathered beneath Paul, for Piers was half consumed. Tendrils of black oil crawled over him, boiling around him, slithering over his skin until nothing but blackness remained. Below Piers, a sense of pressure built and Paul thought he caught a fragmentary glimpse of a huge eye, dull red in colour with an elliptical pupil staring up at him before the seething mass of its dark, incorporeal form subsumed it again.
Panic now turned to white-hot terror. Paul lost all sense of propriety, all sense of loyalty, and tore Piers’ fingers away from his suit. Piers’ eyes widened even further at this final betrayal, this final act of self-preservation, before he was yanked back into the blackness below.
Time stood still. Nothing moved, and reality took on a brittle quality. Paul hung in the void, his breath coming out in short, sharp bursts that made his chest hurt. Then the water around him began to vibrate, and something floated up beside him.
A diver’s mask.
Piers’ mask.
That shattered the spell. Paul kicked up and kicked hard, away from the building sense of pressure below, away from the shadowed creature that laired there. He had no idea if he was going in the right direction; what as important now was ‘away’. The vibrations increased the pressure around him until his ears sang and his nose popped, but he still swam. Up, up, up, never stopping. That was important. Must never stop. Ever.
He felt like he’d been swimming for hours as his supply of fear-induced adrenaline ran low. How deep had they been? But such questions had to wait. He couldn’t stop, not now, not when his life depended on it. He struggled up, praying he was going the right way until finally, a tiny shaft of light filtered down. There, at last, was a beacon of hope. Using the last of his reserves, he kicked hard. His head broke through the miasma into the interior of the church. He was near the bottom – the floor should only have been a foot or so below him. Instead, a deep chasm yawned wide – and whatever dwelt there was rushing up, rushing up to drag him back down and never let him go. He could feel it, feel something huge gathering in the black waters beneath him. He looked up, frantically searching for the broken window, which was just eight feet above him. Relief flooded through him. At last, he knew where to go! He tried to claw his way up, but something snagged his foot, dragging him down, trying to drown him in darkness.
He thrashed his legs, trying to shake it off, and bolted for the window. He felt a moment of resistance as the matter twined around his ankle stretched, then broke and he shot upwards and out of the church.
“-ere the fuck are you? For God’s sake – say something!” Mags’ terrified voice almost deafened him. Paul winced, his teeth gritted against the sudden sonic barrage.
“It’s okay! I’m here,” he panted as he careened upwards, away from the church and towards the murky light of the surface.
“Paul! Oh my god, Paul… what happened? Why didn’t you respond?” Mags said, her voice thick.
“I… I…” A huge sob welled up within him. “Oh, Mags… He’s gone. Lost. Piers is… gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“I don’t… I can’t…” His body sagged. Everything felt very heavy and all he wanted to do was stop swimming; stop moving; stop everything.
“Just get up here,” Mags said. “I’ll try Piers' radio again.”
Wearily, Paul forced his legs to move. He didn’t bother to correct her. She’d find out soon enough.
From under the water, the boat was easy enough to see. It sat on the glassy surface, a dark bruise on an otherwise flawless complexion. He struck out for it, not daring to look back. Whatever had tried to ensnare him wasn't following, he was sure of that, but looking back felt like tempting fate. He didn’t protest when Mags hauled him on board; he just lay there, exhausted whilst she pulled his mask off. The air planted a chilly kiss upon his wet skin, but he didn’t care.
“Where’s Piers?” she asked.
“No time,” Paul said. “We have to go. Get off the water. Get off the water before... before...”
“Before what? Paul, where's Piers?”
Paul stared up at here. Hadn’t she heard him? He staggered to his knees and yanked at the motor's cord, but no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn't make it fire. Tears ran unchecked down his face. Why wouldn't it fire? He pulled it again, grimacing when he felt something in his shoulder pop.
“Paul! Where is Piers?”
“No, we need to get away... why won't it go? Don't just sit there – help me!”
She gave him an angry hiss and took the cord from him. One, hard yank and the motor sputtered to life. Paul fell back into the boat. At last, they could leave.
“What happened down there?” Mags said. All anger had fled her; only naked fear was left.
He didn't reply. He couldn't reply. How could he? He didn't know what had happened. How was he supposed to even begin explaining it to someone who hadn't been there?
“Paul... seriously. You have to tell me. What happened? Where is Piers?”
Paul shook his head. He tried to piece things together, to find a way of expressing just what he had experienced, but once again came up empty.
“I don’t know,” he croaked.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Mags said, her anger returning. “You’re supposed to know. That’s why we dive in pairs, so we can look after each other. That's the whole point. You were with him, ergo, you know. So I'll ask you again, Paul. Where is Piers?”
Tears welled in his eyes again. “I… I don’t know. We were in the church… and… and…”
“And what?” Mags' face flushed red.
“It got him,” Paul sobbed. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t usually one for tears, but he simply couldn’t stop them from flowing. “We dived down, down so we could take a look at the altar, but things… things changed. It’s deep. Deeper than you think. Deeper than it should be. And then it went dark, and it rose up and... and... it engulfed him.”
“Wait... what? What do you mean? What engulfed him?”
“It did,” Paul whispered. “The… the darkness. The creature. In the church. Only there is no bottom. It’s endless, and it lives in it. It took Piers.” Paul reached up and grasped the front of Mags’ life jacket. “It took him. I tried to... it... I couldn't... It took him! It took Piers!”
“No. That's... that's madness. You're mad. You can't have been looking out for him properly.” Mags' eyes were wild in disbelief. “We need to go find him – there'll be enough air in those tanks to sustain him for another twenty minutes-”
“Mags, you have to believe me. You have to listen.” Just the thought of her entering the water again made Paul feel sick. “You can't go in there. You said it yourself – there's something wrong here. You were right. We have to get away, as far as we can.”
“But, Piers-” Mags' eyes glittered with tears.
“If I thought for one moment there was a chance for him, I'd be down there like a shot. But there isn't. I saw it take him. I saw... saw it...” He swallowed hard. “I saw. He's gone, Mags. And so will we be, if we don't get the fuck off this loch.”
She glanced back to St Machan's spire peeking above the surface of the water. It looked peaceful; idyllic almost, ready to lull other unsuspecting visitors into a false sense of security. Paul shuddered. Mags' attention remained on the church, and for a heart-stopping moment, he thought she might ignore him and jump in the water. Instead, she closed her eyes and nodded. He let out an exhausted sigh and lay back as she kicked the boat’s little motor up a gear and guided it back to shore. He risked a quick peek over the side only once and shuddered as the surface of the water sparkled back at him. Behind them, the church spire dwindled into the distance until it was once again more than a speck.
A frown creased Mags' brow as the shore drew closer still. Paul did not look up; adrenaline debt had left him as weak as a kitten.
“What is it?” he mumbled.
“Blue lights,” Mags said. “Up there.”
“Blue lights?” Paul forced himself to sit up and followed her line of sight. Sure enough, in the distance, a blue light strobed through the trees.
“Shit,” he said.
“Yeah. That's one way of putting it. How did they get back so quickly?”
“The sergeant must've already had them on alert.” Paul buried his face in his hands. “How could we be so stupid. We should have left straight away. We should have just packed up and got out of here when we had the chance.”
“Paul, what are we doing to do? How do we explain...” She trailed off, reluctant to say it out loud.
“I don't know. I don't think there is anything we can do.”
Mags steered the little boat in the natural cove with ease. Yolanda and Decker made to run to them, but two burly police officers held their arms out and stopped them.
“Paul!” Decker yelled out, his voice cracking. “What’s going on? What happened out there? Paul!”
Paul took in a shuddering breath and tried to compose himself. Forget the police. They didn't bother him, not really. How was he going to explain this to Decker? They’d been friends with Piers for years. Hell, he’d even been instrumental in getting them together. He’d introduced them to Mags. Now he had to explain that Piers – wonderful, vital Piers – was gone, out of their lives forever.
Mags didn’t say anything as she helped haul him upright. She couldn't even bring herself to look at him. It took all of his strength to clamber out of the boat and stumble through the shallows. All he wanted to do was allow Decker to wrap his arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay, but he was denied even that small comfort.
“Now then. What’s going on here?” the Sergeant said. “I thought I told you people to move along. Now it looks like I have been given no other choice but to take you all in.”
“Fuck you,” Paul mumbled.
“Pardon me?” the Sergeant said.
“I said, ‘fuck you’.”
“Paul, that doesn’t help,” Mags said.
“I don’t care.” Paul said.
“Where’s Piers?” Decker asked.
Paul could tell by the tension in his body that all Decker wanted to do was run to him, but the policeman stood next to him held his hand just close enough to his baton to stop him from doing so. Bitter bile stung the back of Paul’s throat and fresh tears blinded him as he shook his head. He didn’t have to say anything else.
“No…” Decker whispered.
Paul simply nodded. Beside him, Mags sniffed and let out a small but desperate sob.
“Now, you people better be telling me what's going on here,” the Sergeant said. “I was told there was five of you – two lasses, three lads. Now there's only four of you. Where's the other one?”
“I don’t know,” Paul whispered.
“What’s that? You best speak up.”
“I said, I don’t know. We… we went for one last dive. We were going to pack up and leave, I swear, but we just wanted some more footage. That’s all.”
The Sergeant’s expression hardened. “More footage? You risked everything for more bloody footage?”
A furious heat erupted in Paul’s chest, but Mags jumped in before he could gather his thoughts and form a response that wouldn't get him arrested on the spot.
“Risk? What do you mean, risk? Decker said we had to leave because people didn’t appreciate us being here. No mention of risk.” She squared up to the Sergeant. “Are you telling us you knew something like this might happen?”
“I think you need to calm down, lass,” the Sergeant said. You could have bent iron around his tone. “We still don’t know what’s happened here. But your… friend here was about to tell us, weren’t you, ‘friend’? So why you keep nice and quiet and let the laddie speak.”
There was no disguising the disgust Paul felt towards the Sergeant. His mouth puckered in a sneer, and it took everything he had not to launch himself at him and wipe the smug look straight off the Sergeant's face. Instead, he satisfied himself by clenching his fists and fixing him with his best glower.
“M
ags has a point,” Paul said. “No one said anything about ‘risks’.”
“It’s just a turn of phrase,” the Sergeant said. “Nothing more. Now, I’m asking you one last time. What has been going on here?”
The fight fled Paul like someone blowing out a candle. What was the point? He dropped his mask. Someone nearby dodged forward to catch it, but he didn't register who. He gave long, defeated sigh and raked his fingers through his still-damp hair.
“Piers is gone. I don’t know where. We dived into the church and this… this shadow rose up. I didn’t even realise what was going on at first, but something in the darkness pulled him down.” He paused to swallow. “I don’t know what happened to him. But I never saw any hint of him again.”
Well, apart from his mask floating up, he added to himself, but for some reason he didn’t want to admit that to the Sergeant.
“Didn't you look for him?” It was Yolanda who spoke, her dark eyes wide with shock.
“Of course I did,” Paul said. “Well, I tried to… but then I saw… I saw…”
“You saw what?”
This was the question he'd been dreading. He had no idea how to even begin answering it. How could he? He didn't have the words to describe it; no one did. Human vocabulary just didn't stretch that far or delve that deep.
“I don’t know,” Paul whispered. “I don’t know what it was. I can't describe it. There was... darkness. No, not darkness. More than darkness. It was like being in a black, empty space. And then I saw something red – maybe an eye? But it was huge. Then I felt… vibrations. A sense of pressure. All I knew was that I had to get the hell out of there.”
Next to him, Mags’ breath hitched. Paul looked up. She was crying again.
“So… what you’re saying is, he’s dead?” Decker asked. His voice had a hollow quality to it. Paul shrugged.
“I guess so. I can’t see how he would’ve survived.”
“Sounds like you lads bit off more than you could chew down there,” the Sergeant said. “Why do you think no one comes up here? It’s disorientating down there.” He shook his head sadly. “And now you’ve lost your friend because you people can’t do as you’re told.”