A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  Hold your flash still and the beam will fill with teeny wriggling filament worms. When the cone of light gets crowded, slowly lower the beam to a sea anemone and watch it gorge until it’s so full it hauls in its tentacles and shuts down for the night.

  Diving in the dark—the best, man.

  But then the grief.

  Stover remained properly contrite during the lecture until Jim-Tim finally ran out of steam, then he promised never to do it again. But Jim-Tim was still mad as he stomped to the helm to steer them back to George Town . . . where Jim-Tim would no doubt hit the bars and blow-off the rest of that steam.

  And that was where Stover’s real problems began. These divemasters all know each other, all hang out at the same bars. Jim-Tim starts talking about the asshole who almost gave him a heart attack tonight, and another says, Hey, I had a guy like that, and pretty soon they find out they’re all talking about the same guy.

  The result was like major deodorant failure. Worse. If scuba were the Catholic Church, Michael Stover was excommunicated. If scuba were Hinduism, he became a member of the untouchable caste. He could offer double and triple the going rate for a dive—something his trust fund allowed without a second thought—and exhaust his charm and Jason Patric looks on the female bookers, but the answer was the same all over: Dive with someone else, Michael Stover.

  Stover was already blacklisted in Cozumel, Belize, and had been edging toward that status here in the Caymans. And he couldn’t book a dive under a different name because the certified outfits wanted a look at your C-card. Once they saw his name, that was it. And as for the uncertified fly-by-night dive shops, that was like playing Russian roulette. Stover had tried one of those, but a test whiff from one of their tanks smelled like midpoint in the Lincoln Tunnel, and he’d canceled out.

  He’d approached the Caymans with a game plan, starting on the smaller out islands—deep dives at the Blacktip Tunnels on Little Cayman, and Cemetery Wall on Cayman Brac—before moving here to the main island. He’d done only two Grand Cayman dives—hundred-footers at Twisted Sister on the south wall and Main Street on the north wall—and already word was out. But the dive shop he’d booked tonight apparently hadn’t heard about him. After this run, though, his name would be mud all the way out to Rum Point.

  Ah, well. He hadn’t been to Bon Aire yet. And all of Micronesia waited.

  Stover took his wetsuit off the hanger and checked for moisture: dry. Should be. He’d rinsed it out two days ago and hadn’t had it on since. Just as he’d expected, the dive shops had shut him out. Time to move on.

  Only when in transit did he miss having a buddy. Soloing in an airport or on a plane was a whole different breed of isolation from soloing on a reef. He loathed it. But he’d yet to find a sympatico companion—a diver rich enough to have unlimited free time but who’d go his own way once they were underwater.

  Maybe someday.

  A knock on the door. Stover glanced at his watch. He’d told the front desk to send the porter by at nine; it was only 8:30. He pulled open the door.

  “Look, I’m not packed yet so—”

  He stopped. This dude was no porter.

  “You dey man who dive alone?” said an old black guy who looked like a cross between Nelson Mandela and Redd Foxx, dressed by Dumpsters ‘R’ Us. A featherstar of a man, bright eyes with black-hole centers set in sun-blasted furrows of brain-coral skin, a ghost of a beard clinging to his jaws like Spanish moss.

  “Who wants to know?”

  The old man thrust out a spidery hand. “I am Ernesto.”

  Stover shook it with no enthusiasm, then began to close the door. “Great. Look, I’m packing to leave, so if you’ll—”

  “Oh, you do not want to be packed so soon,” he said with that melodic island cadence. “Not until you have had the chat with Ernesto.”

  “Really? And just what is it you want, Ernesto?”

  Ernesto stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him. Stover didn’t see how he’d had enough room to manage that, but suddenly he was in. He wasn’t afraid of the old man. Hardly enough muscle on those matchstick arms to break, well, a matchstick. But still . . . the guy had an urgency about him . . .

  “It be not what Ernesto want. It be what dey man who dive alone want. Do he want to be diving dey Atalaya Wall?”

  Stover widened his eyes. “The Atalaya Wall? Ooooh, neeeeat! And how about we swing by the Seven Gold Cities of Cibola along the way?”

  “Ernesto not be following dis talk.”

  “Come on, old man. You don’t really think I’m going to fall for that, do you? What do I look like?”

  “You look like dey man who want to be diving dey Atalaya Wall.”

  “And next you’ll tell me you can take me there.”

  A shrug. “Ernesto lives on Atalaya.”

  Stover stared at him. No guile in those bottomless eyes. Could it be . . .?

  Naw. The Atalaya Wall was a Caribbean myth.

  Facts: The Cayman Trench runs from the Yucatan basin, passing the Caymans and snaking between Jamaica and Cuba to end up somewhere in Haiti’s backyard. Troughs along its course reach depths just this side of five miles, the deepest spots in the Carib.

  The concentrations of sea life along the trench walls are as dense as anywhere in the world, and make the Caymans an international dive mecca. But is that enough? No way. The scubaheads have to conjure up a Shangri-La called Atalaya, a lost island perched on the edge of a four-mile trough with a vertical reef that’s absofuckinlutely the best dive site in the world . . . if only someone could find it. Those who search for it come back defeated, or don’t come back at all.

  “Ernesto be taking you dere if you want.”

  Okay, Stover thought. I’ll play along. “Yeah? Why me?”

  “Only dey man who wishes to be alone in dey sea, to be one with dey reef, can see dey Atalaya Wall.”

  “And I’m that man?”

  “Dat is what dey be telling Ernesto.”

  “Too bad you didn’t come by sooner. I’ve got a flight to Tampa in a couple of hours.”

  “Oh,” Ernesto said. “Okay den.” He turned and reached for the doorknob. “Perhaps dat be a good thing.”

  What? No hard sell?

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because dey Atalaya Wall be ruinin’ you for aaaaall other places. Once you see it, you not want to be diving anywhere else.”

  Stover put a hand on the old man’s bony shoulder. “Hold on a sec.” I know I’m going to hate myself for this, he thought, but asked anyway. “How much you want to take me there?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “Five hundred!” The average two-tank dive ran fifty-sixty.

  “Cayman dollars.”

  That added another twenty-five percent. “Ernesto, my man, I do believe you’re a few fins short of a whole fish.”

  “Is a long trip, and Ernesto must be sailing all dey way himself.”

  “Sail?” This was bugfuck crazy.

  But just crazy enough to be the real thing. What con artist would dream up this approach? And hell, the money was nothing. Why not go for it? He had no firm plans other than hanging out with the manatees in Florida while he planned his next dive trip. And even if this guy took him someplace other than Atalaya, he’d be diving alone, on a reef he could call his own, with no grief afterwards.

  But what if Ernesto really did know the way to the Atalaya Wall?

  The prospect became a thousand pounds of sand, engulfing him.

  “All right. When do we leave?”

  Ernesto’s eyes all but disappeared in parchment furrows as he smiled. “As soon as come dey dark.”

  “A night dive, then?”

  “A night trip. Ernesto only travel in dey dark . . . so dat others may not be following him.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Sneaking off in the night to dive. This was getting better every minute.

  Stover huddled on a bench on the windward side of Ernesto’s
small ketch as it slid across the starlit water. He clutched the handle of the six-inch, saw-toothed diving knife in the pocket of his windbreaker. No moon overhead, land was a memory, and Ernesto had the tiller.

  Alone at sea with a crazy old man.

  Crazy, yeah. Little doubt on that score. Anyone who truly thought he knew the way to the Atalaya was probably missing a couple of hoses on his regulator. But dangerous? Stover didn’t think so. But he couldn’t be sure. Thus the knife.

  So why am I here?

  Just as crazy.

  But not stupid.

  It had occurred to him earlier, on his way to the docks, that the old guy might plan to rob him, kill him, then toss him overboard. He’d almost chickened out, but then flashed on a deal: the first hundred bucks up front, and the other four when they got back to George Town. Which made Stover more valuable alive than dead.

  Yeah, you had to get up pretty early in the morning to keep Mike Stover in your wake.

  Ernesto didn’t seem to have a problem with the arrangement. And Stover had no problem with the air tanks Ernesto had brought along. Rented from Bob Soto’s shop. Good stuff.

  And the old coot was a damn good sailor. He had only the foresail up but they were making good time running west with the swells. Up and down, up and down . . . a primal rhythm . . . soothing . . . lulling . . .

  “Wake up, diver man.”

  Dark . . . smelly . . . something wrapped around his face, around his body. Stover thrashed violently, fighting the encircling coils, and felt himself falling.

  Sunlight seared his eyes as he hit a hard surface and rolled free. He blinked, looked around. Still on the ketch. Sitting on the deck. A dirty, threadbare blanket that might have been navy blue once—might have been clean once—lay coiled around his feet. He kicked it away. Christ, for a moment there—

  “We are here, diver man.” Ernesto stood over him, grinning.

  “Where?”

  He gestured over the gunwale. “Atalaya.”

  Stover scrambled to his feet. A hundred yards away lay a short white beach lined with coconut palms, Caribbean pines, and a cluster of corrugated metal shacks. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but he’d pictured something a little more impressive than this oversized sandbar, the mirror image of a zillion other tiny Caribbean islands.

  “That’s it?”

  “Atalaya not be looking like too much above dey water. Ah, but below . . . below she have many, many charms.”

  She’d better, Stover thought. He was feeling a bit cranky at the moment. His limbs were stiff, and his back felt like he’d been sleeping with an air tank strapped on all night.

  He glanced around. The sail was down, tumbled around the boom like an old bed sheet, and the sun sat maybe ten degrees above the horizon in a pristine sky.

  “How long’ve we been here?”

  “Just arrived.”

  “What happened to my night dive?”

  “First you do daylight dive. Atalaya must be seen in day to appreciate. And while you down, you choose where you wish to be night diving.”

  Made sense.

  “And not to be worrying. You will dive in dey dark. Ernesto promises.”

  Stover climbed up onto the deck and stood by the foremast for a better look. To his right, the sandy bottom lay a dozen feet below, a pale, pale turquoise expanse running in a gentle slope from the beach to the boat, marred here and there by dark splotches of coral heads. But directly under the keel the aquamarine hue darkened abruptly to a deeper, almost cobalt blue that stretched to his left as far as he could see. The color line ran directly under the boat, from the fore horizon to the aft. The lip of the Cayman Trench, a sheer almost vertical drop, where units of depth switched from feet to miles.

  The Atalaya Wall, he thought. If this is really it . . . and if it’s half as spectacular as the fables say . . . Christ, the stories I’ll be able to tell.

  The aches and pains drained away. He hopped back down to the deck and unzipped his dive bag.

  “Let’s do it.”

  As Stover was attaching his regulator to the first tank, he spotted movement on the island: a skinny little boy, a stick figure drawn with magic marker, ran down to the waterline and waved.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Dat be Silvio, Ernesto’s grandboy.”

  “Yeah? Tell you what—I’ll bring him back a nice fat conch for dinner.”

  Stover thought he saw Ernesto’s eyes cloud for an instant before he turned away and stared at the water.

  “Silvio like dey conch,” the old man said softly.

  Stover was suited up and ready to rock in less than ten minutes. He seated himself on the starboard gunwale, waved to Ernesto, then flopped backward into the water. He released some air from his BCD and let himself sink to within a couple of feet of the bottom. He started kicking, scanning the sand as he moved.

  Where were the fish? Shallow open water and sandy bottoms had nowhere near the life of a coral head, but he was used to seeing something—a flounder, a ray, a snapper or two, a school of baitfish. He found nothing, not even in the boat’s shadow, usually a favorite hang for barracuda and others.

  Not an auspicious start, but he was sure all that would change once he reached the storied Atalaya Wall. And that lay just a dozen feet ahead.

  Stover stayed low, kicking for speed. He imagined himself in a single-seater plane, flying low over the desert, coming to what looked like the end of the world and zooming over the edge. But instead of finding the corrugated walls of the Grand Canyon . . .

  Nothing but blue emptiness, deepening steadily in hue ahead and below as the miles of water beneath him swallowed the light . . . he was floating above eternity . . . the closest thing to flying without wings, to spacewalking without a rocket.

  Stover relished the solitude a moment, looking into the abyss . . . and feeling suddenly uneasy as he sensed it looking into him.

  Shaking off the feeling, he did a one-eighty and kicked back toward the wall.

  What the hell?

  Where was the color? Where was the life? The hard coral looked bleached and dead, and the soft coral looked like it had been turned to stone—the fans stood rigid instead of undulating gracefully in the currents, and the sponges looked like terra cotta pottery.

  Stover’s mouth went dry. What was going on here? Had some asshole started using the trench as a toxic waste dump?

  He bled a little more air from his vest and sank deeper, studying the wall. Except for the need to pop his ears, he had no sensation of sinking; rather, the wall seemed to be rising. But nothing changed: the coral was as dead down here as it had been on the rim. And not one damn fish.

  This was getting scarier by the minute. Something heavy going down here, something bad in this water, and Stover wanted no part of it. He wanted out. Now.

  A shadow passed over him.

  Jesus!

  Stover whirled and looked up, expecting a manta or some other—equally harmless, he hoped—pelagic, but saw nothing but water. Darker water. A cloud must have found the sun. Funny, he didn’t remember seeing any when he’d entered the water.

  As he checked his depth—ninety-five feet—another shadow passed like a dark wing, and now the water was definitely darker, almost if it were sunset up there.

  Stover’s heart began to hammer. Something very wrong here, and getting wronger by the second. He kicked toward the surface at a faster speed than usually recommended, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t been down long enough to absorb enough nitrogen to trigger the bends. And fuck the safety stop for the same reason.

  Get me out of here!

  And then it grew even darker, so dark he could barely see the wall to his right.

  Terrified now, Stover began kicking frantically, bringing his arms into play to increase his velocity toward the surface shimmering so faintly above.

  Another flicker of shadow and now even the shimmer was gone.

  Stover heard himself whimper in fright through his regulator as he
stroked and kicked upward. No! This wasn’t happening—couldn’t be happening. The sun doesn’t just go out. Even if a total eclipse was going on, there’d be some light up there.

  He was getting winded. Jesus, he should have reached the surface by now. Still kicking, he found his instrument pack and held it before his mask. He could barely make out the luminescent dial on the depth gauge, but he swore it read 120 feet.

  He blinked a couple of times and rechecked the gauge. No question: 120 feet.

  Had to be some mistake. He’d been ninety-five feet down when he’d started for the surface.

  His checked his pressure gauge: 2000psi—he’d started off at 3100. He was breathing too fast, chewing up his air supply. Had to relax. No panic. Think.

  Use the BCD—it wasn’t called a buoyancy control device for nothing. Let it do the work.

  Stover popped a little air into the vest’s bladder and felt himself start to rise. He calmed himself, controlled his breathing. He was going to be all right. Somewhere there was a rational explanation for all this, but he’d wait till he was on the surface before worrying about it.

  He held up his depth gauge again, and damn, he couldn’t see the dial. The water seemed to be eating the light. He fumbled in his vest pocket and pulled out his flash. The meager glow barely lit the dial, but he almost lost his mouthpiece when he saw the numbers—150 feet.

  No! Not possible!

  Nitrogen narcosis. That had to be it. Too much nitrogen made you giddy, crazy. Divers hallucinated, tore off their masks and regulators and tried to breathe water. The rapture of the deep, they called it.

  But Stover felt no rapture, only panic. He pointed his flash above him and watched the bubbles rise. He was following his bubbles, that meant he was rising . . . so how could his depth gauge be reading deeper.

  Air—Christ, he was down to 1000psi.

  His weight belt. He carried eight pounds of lead around his waist to compensate for the body’s natural buoyancy.

  Dump it!

  He grabbed the quick release buckle, pulled it free, let it go . . .

  . . . and felt it slide away to his right. To his right!