The Ocean Dark

by Christopher Golden

  Josh nudged her away from the lifeboat controls, eyes glazed but still standing. Gun dangling at his side, he started the lifeboat on its slow descent.

  “I go last. Part of the job,” he said.

  Tori nearly slapped him. From the moment things had gone wrong, she had been looking for a man—hell, anyone—to save her, but she was sick of being saved. She had spent three years as a secret survivor, lost between the cracks of the world, no real name and no more idea of who she really was than she’d had at the age of nine.

  She stopped the lifeboat from lowering.

  Josh swayed on his feet, and then collapsed to his knees, weak from blood loss.

  “No!” Tori cried as she grabbed him to keep him from toppling completely. She tried to get him back on his feet, to move him toward the hatch, but did not have the strength. She twisted round and spotted the captain.

  “Gabe, help me!” she said.

  Tori saw the hesitation in Gabe’s eyes. Angie shouted at them from inside the lifeboat, in a terrified frenzy to depart.

  “Please,” she said. “He’s just a guy doing his job, no different from you.”

  Gabe Rio swore as he stepped away from the hatch, rushed to her side, and began to help lift Josh to his feet.

  “Goddamn it!” Miguel Rio roared. “What the fuck is the matter with you?” But he stepped out of the way as Gabe and Tori half-dragged Josh to the lifeboat. Gabe stepped through the hatch and reached up, awkwardly pulling Josh in after him.

  A scream filled the air, carried by the wind, and Tori twisted round to see Sal Pucillo racing toward them. She was glad to see him, glad that yet another of the Antoinette’s crew would survive the night.

  The thing came out of the dark so swiftly that Tori had only just clocked it in her peripheral vision before it hit Pucillo, knocking him to the deck. Tori and Miguel raised their guns, but fired wide for fear of hitting Sal. The creature twisted round, two rows of nostrils flaring, rippling like gills. Its lower body coiled around Pucillo and it grabbed the deck, hurling itself toward the railing and over the side.

  Pucillo screamed all the way down, silenced only by the splash as they struck the water and it dragged him down.

  “Give me your gun!” Miguel said.

  Tori glanced at him, saw him staring, and turned to see two, three, five of the things whipping across the deck toward them. Others hung, cocoon-like, from the catwalks around the accommodations block.

  Miguel snatched her gun from her hand. Raising both, he began to fire, but there wouldn’t be bullets enough, and he had to know that. Tori stared for a sliver of a moment, and understood. Miguel had betrayed his brother, destroyed their bond. He could never make up for what he’d done, but this much he could do. He could give up his life for his brother.

  Gabe began shouting from the open hatch of the lifeboat, going from English to rapid-fire Spanish. Miguel ignored him.

  Tori hit the control, started the lifeboat descending again, and grabbed his wrist.

  “Come on!” she said, a giddy exhilaration filling her.

  She ran to the edge of the deck and Miguel staggered with her, still shooting. One of the guns dry-fired and he tossed it aside. The things slithered faster. He’d killed three of them, but there were so many more. Tori glanced up in a last moment of uncontrollable curiosity, overwhelmed by that strange hysteria, and saw one of the sirens atop the wheelhouse, outlined against the night sky.

  Miguel gave her a shove.

  If she hadn’t leaped for the hatch, she’d have fallen all the way down to the water. As it was, she struck her ankle on the hatch rim and heard the crack of bone even as she landed on the floor of the lifeboat, slamming the back of her skull.

  Josh reached out and took her hand, and held on tight.

  “Close it!” Miguel screamed.

  Angie tried to hold onto Gabe but the captain shoved her aside, pushing up through the hatch as though he thought he could fly back up to the deck of his ship.

  “Miguel, no! Jump, hermano!” Gabe screamed.

  But Miguel stood by the winch controls, staring down at them as the lifeboat lowered toward the water. Tori stared past Gabe, up through the hatch. Miguel seemed to grow smaller. Long, cratered fingers wrapped around his face from behind. He screamed again, but there were no words.

  Angie pulled Gabe away, and this time he did not fight her. Tori watched as she tugged the hatch closed, dropped the bar to secure it, and before they could settle into a seat, the cables holding the lifeboat let go and they were falling.

  Josh swore, and she lost her grip on his fingers. Gabe crashed into the hatch. Tori’s head hit the ceiling and then the boat struck the water and she crashed to the floor. The lifeboat swayed from side to side but then righted itself. Disoriented, she watched as Gabe started to rise and move toward the pilot seat.

  Something struck the roof. Another loud splash came from outside. The lifeboat rocked again and Gabe fell over.

  “They’re coming after us,” Angie whispered.

  Tori glanced over at Josh and saw that he’d succumbed at last. His shirt was soaked with blood, but she thought he was still breathing. Things scrabbled at the outside of the lifeboat and she felt ice spreading inside of her. She pressed her lips together, brushed away tears before they could fall, then willed them not to come.

  She dragged herself into the pilot seat and strapped in as they started to slam into the lifeboat’s hull, but it had been built to withstand hurricanes. Then the boat tipped over and they were upside down, rolling in the water. The others cried out as they were tossed around behind her. Tori stared out through the windows, trying to get a sense of their direction. Suckers scraped the hull. A thick, snake-like tail slammed the windshield and she shrank back, thinking it would shatter.

  Not even a crack. Then she knew fate had other plans for her. But not if she stayed here. If she stayed, they would find a way in eventually.

  Upside down in the water, she looked through the windshield and saw two of those slitted, devil faces staring back. Tori locked gazes with the nearest one and fired up the motor, tugged the throttle down just a bit.

  The engine coughed, the rotors chopping into something, and they let go of the lifeboat. It righted itself in the water and lurched forward, swinging side to side before settling down. Tori throttled up quick and the lifeboat roared across the sea, skimming waves, leaving the island behind.

  Moments later, Gabe relieved her. She resisted giving up the wheel but he spoke softly, told her she was injured, and she couldn’t argue. Tori surrendered the pilot seat to him and stretched out on the floor beside an unconscious Josh, with Angie huddled at the back of the lifeboat. But only after long minutes had passed and her heartbeat began to slow to normal did Tori realize the numbness spreading through her was not solely due to shock. Blood matted her hair, where she’d struck her head, and her vision blurred from that blow. Concussion; maybe worse.

  She tried to stay conscious, but the harder she focused, the more difficult it became. Something beeped softly in the cramped confines of the lifeboat and as she lay there, she glanced to her right and saw what appeared to be some kind of walkie-talkie on the floor, green light blinking. An image of Josh, tossing something into the lifeboat, swam up into her consciousness. When it slipped away again, Tori went with it.

  ~60~

  Special Agent Rachael Voss had never been so tired in her life. She’d managed an hour and a half of fitful sleep sometime between three and five a.m., and since then, had been sitting out on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter, with no cigarettes, and no cell phone. Voss didn’t feel like talking.

  They’d found the lifeboat shortly before eleven p.m. Voss would always remember the way her heart had seized, and the way her breath had caught in her throat, when they had opened the hatch and she’d seen that Josh was aboard. Now he lay in the Coast Guard cutter’s infirmary, unconscious. The other passengers on board the lifeboat had made the whole thing a gruesome puzzle. Angie Tyree, a ship
’s engineer, had spoken not a word, staring with blank eyes any time a question had been posed. Tori Austin, pale despite her tan, hair matted with blood, muttered about sirens

  And Gabe Rio. Gabriel fucking Rio, captain of the Antoinette, told a story that seemed to explain the condition of the lifeboat’s four passengers but could not possibly be true. When Voss had tried to ask the engineer, Tyree, about it, the woman had curled into a fetal ball.

  After which Voss had not been allowed to ask any more questions. Josh and Tori Austin were taken to the infirmary for medical attention, and there they remained. The commander of the Coast Guard unit that had been tasked to the mission had been in to see them, and so had Ed Turcotte, but they were shutting Voss out and wouldn’t even let her see her own partner.

  Turcotte had figured out the lifeboat’s speed and did the math, based on how much fuel remained in its tank. Some of the Coast Guard people had traced its trajectory backward, adjusted for current and other variables, and come up with a triangle of open sea that they believed contained the origin point for the lifeboat’s launch. But whether or not the Antoinette would still be there when they found it was another question.

  So while Josh slipped in and out of consciousness, the little fleet of would-be rescuers that Rachael Voss had gathered continued sailing, searching the area the Coast Guard techs had laid out for them.

  An hour before dawn, as the sky had begun to lighten, Turcotte had ordered his chopper into the air, and the helicopter had begun its own search of the arc. But Voss had been up before that, unable to sleep

  Ed Turcotte came out onto the cutter’s deck. He was an interesting-looking man, with his enormous bald spot and his square jaw and hangdog face, like some cross between SWAT team leader and certified public accountant. Voss smiled to herself at the aptness of the comparison.

  Turcotte didn’t smile, and her own vanished.

  “Josh is awake,” Voss said.

  “You could say that.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Turcotte lifted his chin defiantly. He wanted to remind her who was running this mission. At the same time, she thought his eyes looked a bit spooked, and that worried her. What the hell spooked Ed Turcotte?

  “It all sounds pretty wild,” he said.

  Voss stared at him, head cocked. “You mean he’s confirmed Gabriel Rio’s story?”

  “A secret island. Monsters in the water killing everyone. Every detail.”

  Voss swallowed, her throat going dry. “So much for our little turf war over this case. It’s about to get much bigger than either of us.”

  Turcotte looked away, squinting slightly. “Agreed.”

  “Do you believe any of it? Monsters, Ed? I mean, that’s a far cry from Counter Terrorism, isn’t it?”

  Turcotte twitched. One corner of his lip turned upward and she knew the conversation was about to turn ugly. But instead of chastising her, he surprised her by holding out his hand.

  “Whatever happened out there, it doesn’t sound like any of us are experts on it. We’ll need to be able to work together.”

  Voss saw the grim determination in his eyes. Turcotte was an arrogant prick, but he had earned his position leading the Counter Terrorism unit. The man knew how to do his job.

  She shook his hand, sealing a pact.

  A lanky agent—far too awake at this time in the morning, and young enough to be fresh out of Quantico—hurried out on deck. He came to a quick halt and glanced back and forth between them, afraid to interrupt.

  “What’ve you got, Lavallee?” Turcotte asked.

  “The Antoinette, sir,” the young agent replied. “The chopper just radioed in. She’s moored off a small island, twelve miles north/northeast.”

  Turcotte looked at Voss. “I don’t know about you, Rachael, but I’d like to know what the hell went on out here. You ready?”

  Voss looked out to the east, where the sun now rose, burning off the halo of night and mist that lingered over the water. Dawn, but it did not feel like a new day to her—not with Josh in the infirmary, and the nightmare he had only barely survived still going on. She looked down at the deep water, at the ocean dark, and it seemed to her as though it went down forever.

  “Hell, yeah. Full ahead.”

  ~61~

  Overnight, the weather turned. Alena had slept fitfully, rousing several times to hear the patter of rain against her windows and the way the old windows rattled in their frames with every gust of wind. As a young woman she had traveled the world and rarely suffered from jet lag or insomnia or, God forbid, homesickness. She loved the adventure, even now. But no matter how fit her travels and the gym might have kept her body, her spirit sometimes grew tired. The time shift from Croatia to Washington D.C. had unsettled her, so she had not slept well and had risen just after four a.m. to find herself entirely awake.

  In the kitchen, she fixed herself a cup of strong coffee and then sat at the small table by the window that looked out on M Street and watched the dawn arrive. The sky lightened, though the sun hadn’t a hope of even peeking out from behind the heavy clouds, and rain dappled the lilies in the flower box just outside the window. General Wagner would expect her in the office today, writing reports and taking meetings, but Alena decided that she could write reports here at home and take any meetings by phone. It was a day for staying in, for swaddling herself in a blanket on the sofa, drinking coffee and listening to all the handsome twentysomething singer-songwriters that David teased her so much about.

  The phone startled her into spilling her coffee.

  “Damn it!” she muttered, then she shot an accusing glare at the offending instrument. It jangled in its cradle on the countertop, face lit up with the number of the incoming call, but she couldn’t make out the digits from across the room.

  As she rose, it occurred to her to check the clock on the microwave. 5:47 a.m. That was when she knew her day would not be spent on the sofa. Hank Wagner had worked with civilians long enough to know that even a general didn’t call at 0600 hours and except a warm reception.

  Hoping that the phone would not wake David, she snatched it up and thumbed the button to talk. “This had better be good, general.”

  “Hello, Alena,” Wagner replied. “And you know it isn’t. For something ‘good,’ I’d let you sleep. I only wake you up when it’s something ugly.”

  David woke to a banging on his bedroom door. His eyes snapped open and he stumbled out of bed with the sheet wrapped modestly around him, barely awake but filled with panic. As he oriented himself, he wondered what had happened. Fire? An intruder?

  “Up and at ‘em, David!” his grandmother called from the hallway. “Come on. Get your ass out of bed.”

  The bedroom door stood half open and as he stumbled toward it he saw Alena hurry by, then abruptly reverse course as though she’d forgotten something.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

  She paused in the hall to look in at him, and it struck him that she had been up for quite some time. His grandmother had showered and dressed in black trousers and a white, tailored blouse. She’d done her makeup and hair. But the shoes were a dead giveaway, flat and practical, perfect for traveling.

  “Pack a bag,” she said, then wrinkled her nose. “And take a shower. Your room reeks of man-smell. But hurry.”

  Before he could argue—or ask what else men should smell like—she set off again, vanishing beyond the narrow view his half-open door provided. David knew Alena did not exaggerate, that if she wanted him to hurry there must be a reason, but he’d just been roughly woken from too-brief slumber and he wanted to know what the hell was going on.

  He pulled the door open and went into the hall, dragging the sheet around and behind him like the train of a wedding dress. When he didn’t see Alena in the hall he blinked, then realized that she had gone into his office. The door hung open and she had turned on a light to brighten up the gloomy morning.

  He started to ask what she was up to, but the
moment he saw her bent over the table, peering at his ocean charts, he knew. His first instinct brought a rush of triumph, but then his stomach gave a sick twist and he shivered as nightmare images sprang up in the back of his head--memories that had haunted him both awake and asleep for years.

  “Someone found another island,” he said, approaching his grandmother from behind. “Who found it? And where?”

  She did not turn to face him. “Gun smugglers, believe it or not. Followed quickly by FBI and Coast Guard. And in the Caribbean.”

  “Jesus.” David came up beside her and stared down at the chart, at the tiny red X she had made. Over the past few months, comparing reports of missing pleasure craft, fishing boats, and other ships, he had been creating an incident map on the chart, trying to pinpoint a probability triangle, an area where those events indicated such a habitat would likely be found. Alena’s X fell within his probability triangle.

  “I was on the right track,” he said, but the realization did not feel like a victory. He wondered how many people had already died.

  Alena turned to him, rose on her toes and kissed his temple. “You were. Now get in the shower. There’s a plane waiting, and the car will be here to fetch us in twenty minutes.”

  She left the room, and a moment later he heard her soft tread as she descended the stairs. David glanced over at the wall where he had posted dozens of newspaper articles about missing ships, as well as case notes about the two previously discovered habitats. A strange feeling spread through him, and he hefted the chunk of glassy black stone in his hand as he tried to identify the unfamiliar tremor inside him. Staring at the smiling faces of a fiftyish couple who had vanished on their sailboat, David blinked in surprise.

  He wasn’t used to fear.

  ~62~

  When the men and women in their Coast Guard uniforms had helped Gabe Rio out of the lifeboat and he’d seen the two grim bastards in FBI jackets waiting for him, he had felt something go out of him. At first it had felt like will, or purpose, or some reason to go on. Only later did he realize that the weight that had been lifted from him was responsibility. Whatever happened next would be out of his hands, and it shocked him how grateful that made him feel.