What Lurks Beneath

by Ryan Lockwood

  And then everything went black.

  Val was sitting on the ground. She was unable to see, and her flesh tingled. There was a high-pitched, steady ringing in her ears.

  There had been a blinding flash, and a deafening boom. She realized a bolt of lightning had just struck the crane directly. Burned into her retinas was the momentary image of the jagged bolt descending from the clouds to course over the crane and the octopus’s outstretched body, like molten fire.

  Rabinowitz was in the crane. He might have gone into cardiac arrest. She had to get to him.

  Her vision returned some. The octopus had disappeared back into the water. Val stood unsteadily and moved toward the crane, groping slowly around the pool. After stumbling into a railing and then moving a few steps along it, her vision fully returned. She hurried around the pool, until she could see Rabinowitz slumped inside the cab. A bolt of lightning could heat the adjacent air to 50,000 degrees, and carried hundreds of thousands of volts.

  She wondered if he was still alive.

  CHAPTER 72

  She was hurt. Badly.

  Her flesh, her skin and muscles, all burned with pain. She could not remember where she was, or how she had gotten here. But she needed to escape.

  She moved across the bottom of the small water-filled cavity, still blind but feeling every surface with her tender suckers. She sensed a light current, pulling the water downward.

  An arm tip followed it, and came across a small hole. Water flowed down into it. It might be wide enough. A large rock partially covered the hole, but she shoved it aside and began to force the tips of half her arms into the space. Inside it felt smooth, cylindrical. It ran sideways. She remembered. She had entered this way. But where did it go?

  It might lead to the ocean. To her den.

  She slid the slender tip of another arm into the narrow opening, then two more, elongating them into the pipe. Each raced forward, trying to surpass the others, causing the arms to shrink in size. To align against one another. They slid together along the smooth surface, worming forward in unison, through a series of rhythmic contractions. Each pull was anchored by hundreds of suckers pressing against the sides.

  Soon the only solid, inflexible part of the great octopus’s boneless body arrived at the opening. She eased herself forward, pushing with her trailing arms, pulling with those already inside. She squeezed her hard mouth-parts, and the rigid ring of tissue around them, into the pipe.

  She fit.

  She pressed her body forward. Soon she reached another opening to a pool above, and knew that she had entered here. But before she had gone the wrong way.

  She moved with great difficulty down the long, narrow pipe. Each contraction of her muscles brought intense pain, but she continued, inching forward toward the open ocean. She stopped to rest, but realized in this constricted state that she was almost entirely unable to breathe. Not enough water could flow past her gills to deliver oxygen. If she lingered here, she would quickly die.

  She reached her arms farther down the dark tunnel, gripped the sides with her suckers, and again pulled her body forward.

  At last, when her arm tips stretched forward, instead of meeting the unvarying, curved walls of the pipe, they arrived at the end. She felt something blocking her exit, but could now taste familiar waters. She was near her den.

  She slid a slender arm tip through an opening in the lattice and coiled it twice around a metal bar. There was a loud clang as the bolts burst from the rock wall and the circular grate came free in a single, powerful jerk. With the metal grate now gone, her arms began to emerge and eagerly fan out. When her head and mantle reached the end, with one final great heave she spilled free and rolled forward, melding with the rough, slanted cavern floor below her.

  She felt cool, fresh seawater fill her mantle. She moved toward her den, her young.

  She was home.

  PART IV

  THE DEN

  CHAPTER 73

  “I think the octopus is a she,” Val said.

  Sturman stared at her across a restaurant table puddled with water. The rain had stopped. Mack and Eric, sitting with them on the deserted patio near a large swimming pool, also stared, but with more puzzled expressions.

  “What are you talking about? Why?” Eric said.

  Val pointed at the policemen in yellow rain slickers a hundred yards away, struggling to remove the remains of the crane operator’s body near the edge of the ruined tank.

  She said, “It didn’t consume any of the bodies. It hasn’t actually eaten anyone it’s attacked here.”

  Eric had been upset when she’d described what was left of DORA. Val and Mack had found the ROV when they joined a few Navy divers to rescue Sturman and the others. Nobody down there was seriously hurt, but the EMTs on site insisted that they all get checked out. Somehow the resort owner, Barbas, had talked his way out of it and, still soaking wet, had already gone to his office to try to quell the negative PR being fueled by social media.

  Along with Ashley and a young boy who’d been trapped underwater, Rabinowitz also was still being attended to in one of the ambulances that had maneuvered to the rear of the resort. He was alert, and seemed remarkably well. The bolt of lightning had only run through one side of his body.

  “Do octopuses ever kill prey indiscriminately?” Eric said.

  “No,” Val said. “Just to eat. Something has to describe the conflicting feeding behaviors we’re seeing here. This animal’s inconsistent urge to feed.”

  “Maybe it’s full,” Mack said. “It sure ate a lot of shit in the aquarium.”

  She said, “Maybe. It did eat almost all the sea life in the tank. But I’m confused, because it didn’t eat any of these victims, and at its size it could probably eat a lot more if it wanted to. So there might be something else.”

  “Senescence?” Sturman said.

  She nodded. “Maybe.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Eric said.

  Sturman said, “When octopuses stop eating, usually it’s because they’re old. Gonna die soon. But the males usually aren’t aggressive.”

  “Right,” Val said. “Senescent males are indifferent to their own survival, practically suicidal sometimes, and typically show little urge to hunt. This animal here has done some active hunting, though, and has been very aggressive. So let’s say it’s a mature female.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s possible she’s pregnant. . . .” She paused, thinking of her own failed pregnancy. And what might happen this time. She took a deep breath.

  “You all right, Val?” Sturman said. He found her hand under the table.

  “Sorry. Just lost my train of thought.”

  Eric said, “You were saying this octopus could be pregnant. . . .”

  “Yes. And starting to lose her appetite, but the urge to feed hasn’t left her entirely. So she’s getting in her last meal, before she makes a den.”

  “Makes sense,” Sturman said.

  “Great,” Eric said. “We’re dealing with a hungry, pregnant, giant female octopus.”

  Val said, “There’s at least one other possibility. That she’s already laid her eggs.”

  Sturman frowned. “But females don’t feed again, and never leave their den after laying eggs. Right?”

  “Usually.”

  Eric said, “What do you mean they never leave? You mean not until the eggs hatch?”

  Val shook her head. “No, he means never. After one lays eggs, she usually stays put. Her body gradually consumes itself. Usually, she’ll die when her eggs hatch.”

  “Well, if she never comes out again,” Eric said, “then how can a new mother be another scenario?”

  “Here’s the thing. The females of some octopus species have been known to continue to eat after laying eggs . . . if the eggs were never fertilized. If they never actually mated, in other words. Or, if the eggs are simply inviable.”

  “You mean if she lost her babies?” Eric said.

 
Under the table, Sturman squeezed her hand.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “So this thing could already have a den? With babies growing in it?” Mack said. He leaned forward.

  “Or more likely, inviable eggs. It would explain the conflicting urges. The intermittent hunger, the aggressive urge to protect her clutch in a nearby den. If our octopus laid eggs, but there’s nothing actually growing inside them, her hormones might not have triggered all the usual postpartum events.”

  Mack said, “You said the den would be nearby. Where?” He placed two thick hands on the table.

  “Possibly just offshore here. It would have to be very close, for her to be protective of it.”

  Eric said, “What do we do now, then?”

  “If we can get another ROV down here, we can try and locate her den. But I think we already know where it is.”

  Mack looked at her and nodded.

  That evening, they decided to order takeout. Mack volunteered to pick it up, and asked Sturman to join him.

  The two men stood near the edge of a bar at the mostly outdoor restaurant, waiting for their burgers to come out of the kitchen. Sturman watched a couple of aging female tourists downing drinks at the bar.

  “You’re thinking about having one. Aren’t you?” Mack said.

  Sturman looked at him. “What? No.”

  “Bullshit. I know that hungry look. And it ain’t from watching the tits on those old bags.”

  “Get off my back. I been clean.”

  “Maybe.”

  The men stared defiantly at one another for a few moments.

  Sturman said, “Well, get to it. Why did you ask me to come? What do you want to tell me?”

  “You know that Val’s dad was a drunk?”

  Sturman nodded. “I do.” In the past, she had made a few angry comparisons between the two of them.

  “She ever tell you what happened to him? Why you two never met?”

  “No. She doesn’t talk about him much.”

  He turned and spit into the bushes. “Well, as his drinking got worse, he started hitting her mom. My sister. I helped throw him out after that. The bum ended up writing Val off before he died of cirrhosis. All alone, living on the streets.”

  Sturman held up a hand. “I know where you’re going. I got it. I know I got a problem. But it’s not bad like that.”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m sortin’ it out, goddammit.” Sturman clenched his jaw. This guy had a lot of nerve. “I’m workin’ on it. It just . . . it’s always helped numb the pain.”

  “She told me about that woman you were married to. Son . . . she’s dead. Nothing you can do about it.”

  Sturman thought of Maria’s face. She and Val were so similar. The dark hair and eyes, the intelligence, the feisty personality. Maria would never have put up with his drinking, either.

  Mack said, “Don’t be a quitter. Not on Val. And she won’t quit on you.”

  “This is some pretty heavy talk. You sound like a shrink.”

  Mack slammed his hand down on a table, causing the women at the bar to look their way. “I’m not fuckin’ around here. I mean it. We’re talking about my niece. If you want to be with her, stay clean. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You can’t live in the past.”

  Sturman gestured at Mack’s leg. “Neither should you.”

  The old Marine gritted his teeth. “Stay clean.”

  “I will.” Sturman regarded him for a moment. “Why you telling me this now?”

  Mack nodded past his shoulder. “Food’s here.”

  CHAPTER 74

  The den was snug, no more than two or three times the volume of her own body. The confined space was intentional, chosen to allow her to best care for and protect her brood. Here, she would remain for months tending the eggs until they hatched. And then she would die.

  In the darkness, she did not sleep. She used the tips of her arms to caress each strand of eggs, to clean them, ensuring that no parasites or other threats settled on them. Perhaps all of her young would also be dead soon after her, killed by predators before they ever had the chance to descend toward the depths of the abyss. But she had made the journey from her own birthing den. She had survived. So might some of them.

  She filled her body with seawater and from her siphons gently blew water over the strands, to keep them oxygenated. The sluggish current moving past would not be sufficient to aerate them.

  For the rest of her days, she would remain here, motionless, except to clean and care for her eggs. Conserving her energy so she could persist, only utilizing enough to tend to her clutch while she waited for it to hatch one day. But if anything entered her lair, she would not seek to conserve energy. She would not conceal her form against the cavern walls, or attempt to flee.

  She would defend.

  In the beam of his headlamp, Mack finally found the horned rock. There was no trail to this spot, miles away from Oceanus, 212 paces southwest of the intersection of the highway and an old logging road. He’d had to bushwhack in the dark. But when his light struck the geological feature, he remembered it right away, even though he’d only seen it twice before, also at night, many years ago.

  Mack had left the house after everyone was well asleep, and then called Mars on his cell. The taxi driver wasn’t happy about being woken, but agreed to pick up Mack after he heard how much the crazy American would pay him. Mack only had one condition: Mars would need to keep his mouth shut.

  Back before Mack’s last tour, before he’d lost his leg, he and Breck had come to Andros for some cave diving. His friend had taken him on one special night dive as well. Brought him to help retrieve an object he’d discovered in a coral cleft almost 200 feet down. Under cover of darkness, they’d brought it up to the surface, back to their boat. Before daybreak, over a final beer, they’d hid it here in the bush, in a natural cavity below the low, distinctly shaped rocky rise, where they’d be able to find it again.

  A week later, they’d retrieved it and had taken it to a remote inland blue hole to try it out. See how it worked. They knew they couldn’t use it in the ocean, because it generated sound and the Navy’s detection grid would sense it go off.

  They’d only used it once. But Breck had always felt bad about the damage they’d caused that day. The reason he’d taken it in the first place was that he was angry about the impacts the Navy’s toys were having on the offshore environment, and for years had refused additional contract work from them. Afterward, they’d secretly brought it back here, and never gone near it again.

  But now Mack had a use for it.

  Sweating, he walked up to the head-high ridge of rock. A pair of foot-tall horns of pale rock jutted from it, like the twin humps of a Bactrian camel. He set down his shovel and machete and scanned the rocky, uneven ground below the ridge, which was now covered in thick leaves and other forest litter.

  They’d agreed to tell nobody else about this, because they both knew they could get in a hell of a lot of trouble. But maybe it wasn’t even here anymore. Maybe somebody had already found it.

  Mack ignored the sand flies biting his exposed skin as he shrugged off his empty frame pack and knelt down. He scraped away at the branches and litter with his shovel. After a few minutes, he found a dark opening in the forest floor. That darkness betrayed a large, mostly hidden pock in the ancient coral rock that was concealed under a few exposed tree roots. It was farther to the left than he remembered, and the roots had grown in almost to the point of closing off the hole. He tossed the shovel aside.

  He got on his hands and knees and poked his head into the hole. Inside he saw the same few large rocks he’d placed in here himself, resting on what was left of the folded canvas tarp. He reached the machete in and with its tip he cleared the rocks away, and pushed at the tarp.

  Then he saw the gleam of metal.

  CHAPTER 75

  At dawn, Val woke to urgent knocking at the front door of the guesthouse. As she entered the living room she saw
that Sturman had already risen from the couch and in only his boxer shorts had just opened the door. It was Clive. He looked anxious, out of breath. His bike lay on the ground, its rear tire still spinning.

  “I’m here to see Miss Valerie,” he said to Sturman. He looked over the taller man’s shoulder and saw her, and sighed. “Goodness, dear. I’m so glad you here.”

  She said, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You know how early it is?” Sturman said.

  Val said, “It’s okay, Will. Please, let him in.” She hugged Clive. “I’m glad you’re okay. We didn’t see you anywhere yesterday. Here, let me get a pot of coffee started.”

  “No. Not yet. Is your young friend here too? And your uncle?”

  “What?”

  “Are dey here?”

  “They’re still sleeping. Why?” She glanced down the hall, and could see that at least Mack’s door was shut.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m pretty sure. . . .”

  “I’ll go check,” Sturman said. He headed down the hall.

  “What’s going on, Clive?” she said.

  “I wasn’t around yesterday, when everything happened. But I was at da beach real early this mornin’, even before da sun broke. I seen your boat offshore, near dat big blue hole.”

  “Our boat? You mean the pontoon boat we’ve been using?”

  He nodded. “It sure looked like. I’m hopin’ now I was mistaken.”

  “You must have been. It has to be someone else’s. We’re through diving.”

  Before they’d left Oceanus the previous evening, Val had talked to the local authorities about what they were dealing with, and described the precautions they might need to take. One of those included sealing off the larger pipes running to or from aquariums out to the ocean. This meant shutting down the aquariums all together. They needed to cut off anything that linked the resort to the ocean in any way—until they could gather more data on the animal. Her ideas hadn’t gone over well with Barbas.