Nightworld

"Lights, camera, action!" Nick said as the diving bell lurched into motion.

Dr. Dan Buckley gave him a wan smile and gripped one of the hand rungs. Buckley was an older gent, balding, white haired, sixty at least, from Geology. He had his video camcorder hooked up and directed out one of the forward ports; a 35mm Nikon hung from his neck. He was sweating. Nick wondered if Buckley was prone to panic attacks. The bell, named Trident, was the size of a small, low-ceilinged bathroom. Not a happy place for a claustrophobe.

His stomach did a little spin as the bell swung out over the hole. He'd never liked amusement park rides and this was starting out like one. He looked out the aft port to his right to double-check the laser range-finder mounted there. Everything looked secure. He glanced out the other port toward the crane and the crowd of cops and workers and various city officials and the other members of the teams from the university. He saw Father Bill push his way to the front and start jumping and waving and shouting. He'd been late coming back but at least he'd made it. Nick was glad to have him here to see this. He waved back and gave him a thumbs-up through the glass, then settled down for the ride.

This was great. This was fabulous. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

"All set in there?" said a tinny voice from the speaker overhead.

"All set," Nick said. Buckley echoed the same.

There came a sick second of freefall, then they were on their way, lowered into the depths on a steel cable. They were soon out of the sunlight and into shadow. The alternating floodlights and spotlights ringing the bell's equator were already on, illuminating the near wall. Buckley was glued to his porthole snapping shot after shot of the passing strata with his Nikon.

"Can you hear us up there?" Nick said.

"Loud and clear, Trident," came the reply. "How's it going down there?"

"Smooth as can be. And fascinating. The city ought to consider buying this rig and making it into an amusement ride. Might keep taxes down."

He heard appreciative laughter from above and smiled. That sounded pretty cool and collected, didn't it? He hoped so. Cynthia Hayes was up there, watching and waiting with the others from the university. He hoped she'd heard it, hoped she was impressed. This little jaunt was going to make Nicholas Quinn, PhD. into a big name. The press would see to that. A mob of reporters was waiting up top, and he knew as soon as he stepped out of the bell they'd be all over him with a million questions. He'd be on all the news shows tonight, both the early and late. Maybe even the networks. Most guys in his spot would be figuring out how they could parlay this into a major step up in their career—

Nick could think of three from his own department right off. Nick almost laughed at his own narrow vision. He was wondering how he could parlay it into an opportunity to ask Cynthia out. If he was famous, how could she say no?

The intercom popped him out of a Cynthia daydream.

"You're at the half-way mark, Trident. How're you doing?"

"Fine," Nick said. "Can you still see us?"

"Yeah, but you're just a little blob of light down there now."

Halfway. They had ten thousand feet of cable up there. Almost a mile down and still no bottom. This was incredible. What could have caused a hole like this? Could it be natural? Something extra-terrestrial maybe? Say, that was a thought. It did seem like an artifact. What if—?

Buckley's voice drew him back to reality again.

"Can we get these lights any brighter?" he said to the intercom.

"They' re at max. What's the problem, Trident? "

"The wall's fading from view."

"You're out of sight now. Want to stop?"

Nick looked out his port. Black out there. The beams from the floodlights didn't seem to be going anywhere; the blackness swallowed their light within a few yards of the bulbs. The spots weren't doing much better—shafts of light poking a dozen or so feet into the darkness and then disappearing.

No, wait—ten feet into the darkness. No…

Nick swallowed hard. The darkness was edging in on the lights, overcoming, devouring the illumination.

"What's wrong with the lights?" Buckley said, his voice tremulous.

"I don't know," Nick said. His own voice didn't sound too steady either.

"They're losing power."

Nick didn't think so. It was the darkness out there. Something about it was overpowering the light, gobbling it up. Something thick and oily about it. The blackness seemed to move out there beyond the ports, almost seemed alive. Alive and hungry.

He shook himself. What kind of thinking was that?

But this blackness was certainly unusual, and probably the reason the laser signal had never returned. He smiled. Bottomless indeed! This weird old hole was deeper than it had any right to be, but it wasn't bottomless.

"We need more power to the lights!" Buckley said to the intercom.

It was pure black out there now. The lights were gone.

"You got it all, Trident. If there's an electrical problem we'll bring you back up and try again tomorrow."

"Not till I get at least one reading off the laser," Nick said.

He started flipping switches on the laser controls and noticed that his hands were trembling. It was suddenly cold in here. He glanced at Buckley as he fastened a flash attachment to his camera.

"You cold?"

Buckley nodded. "Yeah, now that you mention it." His breath steamed in the air. "You get your reading, I'll try a couple of flash shots through the ports, then we'll get back upstairs."

"You've got a deal."

Nick suddenly wanted very much to be out of this hole and into the sunlight again. He adjusted the laser settings, triggered it, and waited for the readout. And waited.

Nothing.

Buckley tried a few flash photos out his port while Nick rechecked his settings. Everything looked fine.

"This is useless!" Buckley said, irritably snatching his camera away from the glass. "Like black bean soup out there!"

Nick glanced out his port. The blackness seemed to press against the outer glass, as if it wanted to get in.

Nick fired the laser again. And again nothing. Nothing was coming back. Damn! Maybe the laser wasn't getting through the blackness or maybe the hole was indeed bottomless. Right now he was too cold to care.

"That does it." Nick said. "I'm through. Let's get out of here.

"Take us up!" Buckley shouted.

"Say again, Trident," said the speaker in the ceiling. "We've got static on this end."

Buckley repeated the message but no reply came through the speaker. The bell did not halt its descent.

Nick was frightened now. The walls of the Triton seemed to close in on him. And it was colder. And…

…darker?

"Did the lights just dim?" Buckley said.

Nick could only nod. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth.

"Take us up, goddammit!" Buckley screamed, banging on the steel wall of the bell with his fist. "Up!"

"Okay, Triton," came the matter-of-fact reply. "Will do."

But they didn't stop, didn't even slow their descent. It was down, ever downward.

And it was getting darker by the second.

"Oh, my God, Quinn!" Buckley said in a hushed voice teetering on the edge of panic. "What's happening?"

Finally Nick found his voice. He tried to keep it calm as the cold and the darkness grew…and Buckley began to fade from view.

"I don't know. But one thing I do know is we've got to stay calm. Something's wrong with the intercom up there. But they've only got so much cable. They can only send us down so far, and then they'll have to bring us up. So let's just be cool and hang in there and we'll be okay."

Darkness had control of the Triton now, within and without. Nick couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He was losing his sense of direction, of up and down. His stomach threatened to heave.

"Quinn?" Buckley's voice seemed to come from some point outside the walls of the bell. "You still there?"

Nick forced a laugh. "No. I just stepped outside for a cigarette."

And suddenly there was more than darkness between them. Something solid. An entity, a presence. Beside him, around him, touching him. And it was cold and evil and filled Nick with an unnameable dread that threatened to kick his bowels loose in his pants. He wanted to cry, he wanted Father Bill, he wanted to go home, he wanted the drugged-up mother who'd tried to kick his head in when he was three-months old, anything but this!

And then Buckley's flash went off and they both screamed out their souls when they saw what had moved in to share the bell with them.