by Finch, Paul
Dolph and Heidi, who we’d only met that morning when we’d first arrived at the jetty, reckoned they had heard of it. By all accounts it was as exhilarating to look at from under the water as from over it, which explained their diving equipment. I had to admit, I was getting the bug quickly. As a coastline it was spectacular: an endless succession of deep coves, titanic arches and narrow channels between volcanic outcrops. The sea rose and fell with its usual intimidating power, froth spraying up through the nooks and crannies. For the Mediterranean, the water was relatively clear, and you could see a long way down into the rippling shadows. We stuck closely to the shoreline, but I still got the impression of extreme depth.
On impulse, I asked Carlo about it. He shrugged. “Hey … maybe sixxy, sevenny feet … good for diving!”
I mumbled to Karen that I wasn’t so sure about that, but she told me to be quiet and not to show her up in front of the Germans, both of whom were checking their pressure gauges and looked up eagerly every time we chugged around another headland. Fleetingly, I wondered if they really had heard about the Cathedral, or were just saying that for appearance’s sake. It did seem odd that something as allegedly spectacular as this had to rely on freelance boatmen to take you there. I say ‘boatmen’ because I assumed that Carlo was one of a number, but even though we’d been out with him for several hours by this time, we hadn’t seen any others – either on their way there or on their way back.
*
For all my doubts, the Cathedral was worth waiting for.
From the outside it wasn’t too impressive: a triangular opening in the cliff-face, dark waves chopping and foaming inside it. But the moment we actually sailed in, it struck me how well named it was. A high, multi-coloured roof arched above us, the waves reflected on it in sparkling liquid-patterns. There was a big ocean swell, but the sense of space was mesmerising. I think every one of us must have gasped aloud in delight.
The sunlight beaming in through the cave-mouth behind us came up from the sandy floor fathoms below in rays of luminescence, turning the water swimming pool blue.
“Can we swim here?” Karen asked excitedly.
Carlo shook his head curtly. “No yet, lady. Good place inside … I promise.”
For minutes on end we went deeper into the system, crossing one chamber after another, all as vast and airy as the first, many hung with stalactites. It was quite a network. Occasionally, we followed narrow channels with roofs so low that we all had to crouch down. They were more like something from the River Caves than the Blue Grotto, but always they fed through into new immense caverns.
It got cool quickly of course. And dark. We were still chugging into the labyrinth, when it struck me that there wouldn’t be much point in swimming if it got any darker. I mentioned this to Carlo, but he insisted that not far ahead there was “good place”.
Karen hissed at me to stop worrying. This was part of the experience, she said. We were probably making our way through to the other side of the headland. I tried to put a brave face on, but wasn’t entirely convinced. We were now so far in that even the ocean swell had dwindled. Daylight had almost deserted us and the water was black. That was when Carlo cut the motor, and we found ourselves drifting. He began fiddling with some equipment under his bench. It was a portable arc-lamp. He hefted it up and switched it on, just as we cruised through into the next cave. It would have been a void in there had he not done so, for this was a truly gargantuan chamber with no natural light and water as still as any inland lagoon. Even with the strong electric light, we could not at first see the encircling walls.
Carlo trained the light upward. “Fantastic rock formation, no?” he said proudly. We followed his gaze; countless feet above us hung innumerable dripping stalactites. “Even better down there.” He swept the light over the surface of the water. Powerful as it was, it didn’t penetrate far underneath.
“You’ve got to be joking!” I said.
There was a blinding flash beside me, and I had to cover my eyes. It was Dolph, striking the first of his sodium-flares. It threw a searing glare to the farthest corners of the cave. Both the Germans were fully rigged out: cylinders in place, spear-guns loaded. Dolph was wearing a kind of bandolier-belt, with the remaining eight flares fitted into it.
“Good place to swim,” Carlo went on, nodding brightly.
Heidi swung her supple body over the side, and lowered herself gently into the water. Dolph followed. He gave us the thumbs-up before sliding under. The flare was clearly visible, and we could see them both flippering their way down. With such a bright light below, the water no longer seemed so menacing. Twisted granite outcrops were discernible, albeit at some considerable depth.
“They’re more adventurous than I am,” I told Karen.
She gave me a withering look, then stripped off her T-shirt and picked up her goggles and snorkel.
“You’re not going down as well?” I said.
She slid quickly over the side, cringing at the brief chill. “For God’s sake, Rob … it’s just the sea! We’re not in some flooded pot-hole!”
She pushed herself away, swimming out over the lagoon with dolphin-like grace. Finally, she dived under.
I looked around at Carlo, and grinned awkwardly. “It’d be … er, it’d be marvelous if they’d put some lights down there.”
“You no swim?” he asked, confused.
“Er …” I didn’t really know what to say, but was thankfully interrupted by Karen breaking the surface twenty yards away, whooping with delight. She lifted her goggles. “Oh Rob,” she shouted. “You’ve got to come down. It’s fabulous. The mineral formations … you want to see the different colours.”
She vanished again. In the deep glow of the flare, I could see her frog-kicking strongly down towards the two Germans. She’d always been a much more confident swimmer than me, but even so I wondered at the sense in this. I put my goggles on, stood up in the boat and tentatively stuck my big toe into the water, wiggling it about. As I’d expected, it was very cold.
That was when something detonated against the back of my skull.
There was an explosion of thunder, the world turned upside down and an icy mantle of water enveloped me. In my rush of dazed thoughts, I heard a motor start up.
For seconds I was only half aware what was happening. I broke the surface with Karen’s arms around me, gasping, a splitting pain at the back of my head. Everything seemed to have gone dark, and then, from the corner of my eye, I saw Carlo’s arc-light fading away down the vaulted tunnel at the other side of the lagoon.
“What … what the hell …” I stammered, starting to tread water. Brine slopped into my face, and I coughed. Karen was still holding tightly onto me, but I eased her off. “I’m … I’m alright!”
“What’s he doing?” she said, voice shaking.
A strong light rose up from beneath. It made the blackness in the cavern press down even harder. But seconds later Dolph and Heidi emerged beside us, the flare chasing away the shadows, inviting new ones in below.
We trod water together, telling them what had happened. They were as baffled and amazed as we were. “Is this not some kind of joke?” Dolph wanted to know.
Karen, growing angrier by the minute, showed him a handful of blood from the back of my scalp. “This is no joke! I don’t know what he used, but he could’ve killed Rob, hitting him like that.”
“We shall go to the Carabinieri when we get back,” Heidi said, wide-eyed.
“We have to get back first,” I replied.
I don’t like always being the prophet of doom, but at that moment I had to remind them all that we must have been half a mile in – and that was assuming we could find our way straight out again. Even when we reached the open sea, how far along the coast would we need to swim to find a suitable landing-point? As I remembered, it had seemed like sheer cliffs in both directions.
The flare began to fade, so Dolph tossed it away and lit another one. We were all now shivering hard. A slight swell se
emed to have come from somewhere, and we felt chill currents around our feet.
“We may have another problem,” Dolph said. “This cave-system is of course tidal … it may be that with high tide, some of these passages become impassable.”
The terror of that thought gripped us like a vice. “Let’s go now!” I said urgently. “Now!”
We moved in a group towards the tunnel, at a steady breast-stroke – but not before Dolph handed us two flares each in case any of us got separated from the rest, though we were only to use them one at a time. The two Germans were proving themselves good companions – they both took off their flippers and fastened them to their harness, so as not to get too far ahead. As we swam, Karen came up beside me and asked if I was sure I could make it. I could have laughed. What choice did I have?
I could never have imagined however, just what a feat of strength and endurance was required even to make it out of that deepest chamber. Anyone who has ever tried to swim against a rising tide, even in shallow water off some pleasant beach, will know how difficult it is. For every three yards we made towards the black crevasse that was our first exit, the current pushed us back two. We gasped and grunted and strained every muscle, yet at the same time we knew we couldn’t afford to overtax ourselves. Just thinking about the distance between us and the outer world was unbearable. Mind you, I doubt in that particular moment that any one of the four of us knew the real meaning of fear.
One second later, we did.
It was Karen who first saw it coming up behind us. She was in front of me and had glanced around, concerned that I was dropping behind, when I saw her face change. She gave a shrill, prolonged scream. I looked around too, and had a fleeting vision of some vast shape barrelling towards us, under the surface.
Before I could cry out, a huge object – squashy, rubbery, freezing cold – bundled into me with such force that I was catapulted out of the water and into the midst of the others. I hit Dolph squarely in the back, knocking the wind from him, causing him to drop his flare, and then crashed beneath the surface.
Stunned, I gazed into the blackness below.
Through the chaos of bubbles and by the descending glow of the flare, I saw a mass of threshing, writhing limbs, a gigantic body, shapeless and black. It plunged down into the shadows, then turned sharply about in classic octopoid fashion and came straight up again. When I broke the surface, my terrified shrieks were lost amid all the others. Total darkness had descended, and I splashed around in a frenzy of foam, not knowing which direction I was swimming in.
“Twenty feet!” I shouted. “It must be twenty feet long at least!”
There was another searing light as Dolph lit a second flare, throwing everything into stark relief. We were close to the tunnel mouth, but were widely dispersed from each other, and riding a terrific swell owing to the passage of the vast body below us. Waves crashed against the rock walls. Everyone was still shouting and screaming, unable to communicate. Then the demonic thing reappeared, now in the middle of us, tentacles arching out of the water like immense saurian necks, their sucker pads the size of teacups. The head followed, a vast gelatinous bulk, black as coal.
The horror of that second was almost more than I could manage.
My sanity was literally teetering.
As fast as it had arrived, it re-submerged, foam hissing on the surface behind it. We began plunging towards the cave mouth. Both Dolph and Heidi had unslung their cylinders and were swimming for their lives. Karen and I hammered after them, legs thrashing. It only took seconds to reach the next cavern, but the distance across it was heartbreaking. Daylight glimmered from the four arched cave-mouths on the far side, reflecting on the water pale blue streamers, though made the rest of that lagoon as black as night. We each realised at the same time that we could never make it across there and at the same time outrun this thing from Hell, so when Dolph cut sideways along the cavern wall, we automatically followed.
We swam desperately but nowhere could we find a ledge, just sheer rock, thick with weed and salt. All the way we were conscious of that bottomless gulf beneath us, but we ploughed noisily on, unconcerned about stealth, anxious only to locate a footing.
Karen was the first to succeed. She gave a choked cry and began pounding ahead of us. In the flickering light, I saw a tooth of rock standing up from the water, about a yard from the cave wall. No more than one person could have stood upon it at any single time, but it might have been the tip of other rocks only just submerged. Anything would do, anything we could plant our feet on. Dolph was the first there, and he hoisted his gleaming body up effortlessly, quickly turning to help Karen. As she scrambled up, she looked back to see where I was – and let out a wild cry.
I looked over my shoulder. Heidi was just behind me, and just behind her the thing was rising again, a huge shining bulk approaching with shocking speed. Heavy tentacles rolled over it and crashed down on Heidi’s head, knocking her under.
One snaked across my legs, and, with desperate shrieks, I kicked and splashed myself away from it. I could hear Dolph screaming something in German. I looked up at him. He had given Karen his flare and spear-gun and now was hunched forward, eyes straining as he scanned the frothing waters. Heidi burst out of it again, but rose up to impossible height, thick fleshy coils wrapped around her neck and torso. A gargle of agony was locked in her throat as it twisted her out of shape. For seconds it held her there, suspended above us like a criminal on the gibbet.
Dolph dived full-length at it, but more suckered limbs swung up to meet him, slamming into his head, sending him cart-wheeling into the water, and then diving down after him like snakes.
A split-second later it had vanished, an enormous swell left behind it, bubbles fizzling on the surface.
I clambered hurriedly up onto the rock, beside Karen. We were shivering violently, our teeth chattering. Karen’s face had twisted with disbelieving horror as she gazed down into the ink-black water. Gradually silence descended.
“What … what in Christ’s name is it?” she finally stuttered. There was a faint, eerie echo. Suddenly we seemed terribly alone.
“Octopus,” I whispered.
She looked round at me in slow disbelief. “Octopus? Are you mad!” Suddenly, unexpectedly, she began screaming. That’s no octopus, it’s some kind of monster! You stupid bloody half-wit … don’t you know a monster when you see one?”
I slapped her, hard. Her head dropped and she began to sob. I was too cold and frightened to try and console her. “Giant octopus,” was all I could say.
Yet as I said it, old schoolroom memories flooded back to me – about an ancient legend concerning this particular coast of Sicily. How, according to Homer’s Odyssey , it had been haunted by a duo of terrible monsters: Scylla and Charybdis. The latter of the two was supposedly vast and lived on the seafloor, but the other was described as having many legs and arms, and living among the rocks on the shore. I shook my head in disbelief; had we uncovered an origin of that fable?
“I wonder how long it’s been down here,” I found myself saying.
She glanced up at me again, bewildered.
“How long do they live?” I asked no-one in particular. “A hundred years? A thousand? No wonder it’s got so big … with Carlo and his maniac friends feeding it.”
The flare began to die and I hurriedly struck another. Now we only had three left between us.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said quietly.
She regarded me with fascination. “And how do you propose we do that?”
“Swim. How else?”
The eyes widened in her face. “That knock on the head must have driven you mad!”
“It’s the only way!” For once in my life, I felt quite definite about something. I suddenly knew for certain that to say where we were was to invite death. “Nobody’s going to come here, Karen. The only people who know about this place probably know about the octopus as well. That’s why it’s a secret,”
“You really ar
e mad.” She edged away from me over the rock. “I’d rather stay here and starve than chance that water again.”
“Unfortunately I don’t think it’ll come to that. That thing’s tentacles are as long as a bus … you think it couldn’t swipe us off here any time it wanted? The only reason it’s not attacking now is because it’s taken Dolph and Heidi back to its lair.”
That thought was a hideous one and Karen groaned as she covered her face with her hands. “Oh my God. Oh God, help us, please …”
“Which means that right now is probably the best time,” I added. “Karen, this is not some evil creature. It’s just an animal … a thing of habit and instinct. If it’s eating, it might leave us alone. It might not even notice us.”
“Can’t we get around the walls or something?”
It was worth a look, I had to admit. But it was impossible – sheer all the way around. And in any case, the distance would have been far too great to make with naked fingers and toes.
It took me another half-hour to talk her into coming with me. Even then, she insisted on having the spear-gun at the ready, despite the fact it would slow her down. Only the thought of being left on her own, at the mercy of the beast, made her finally leave her perch. We paddled across the lagoon as quickly and quietly as we could, all the time dreading that silky, feathery touch on the souls of our feet, not even thinking about the huge, empty spaces below. Within minutes of course, we were wheezing and grunting with the effort, but we made it to the far side without incident.
Where a new terror confronted us.
Which way?
Four different tunnels led off, all with faint glimmers of daylight filtering through them. To take the wrong one could be a potentially fatal mistake. Karen shivered violently as we trod water. None seemed familiar; none to possess a greater tidal surge than another. The wrong path might lead to a dead-end, or some wide circumnavigatory route beyond our physical endurance. Then again, it might lead us into the waiting coils of the octopus. The thought of the monster was enough to propel us into the first of the tunnels, and for several minutes we swam down a progressively lower and narrower passage until eventually we were ducking low to avoid striking our heads on the rough ceiling. We’d have had to turn back had we not suddenly broken out into another vast, church-like chamber, though this one was possessed of an ocean roll.