The Ocean Dark

78

Josh broke the surface choking, coughing up water, and gasped for air. Shafts of sunlight made shining columns in the dark chamber, plenty of light to see by, and maybe enough to survive by; he didn’t know. He threw out his right arm, pulling toward a rock ledge a dozen feet away, but his waterlogged clothes and boots dragged at him and he sensed the predatory abyss beneath him. Images flashed through his mind of white flesh, needle teeth snapping shut, and black eyes gleaming. He could feel them there, under him, and whether they were actually there mattered not at all.

Without both arms, he wouldn’t be fast enough. And if the creatures didn’t snag him from below, he might drown anyway. Struggling out of his sling, he cried out in pain as the knitting flesh of his bullet wound tore anew, but the pain drove him on. He set his jaws tight, hissed through his teeth, and swam, cursing the wound, the bullet, and the dead Miguel Rio for shooting him in the first place. The beautiful haze the Vicodin had provided had evaporated.

Something splashed behind him — maybe a rock falling from above, but maybe something else, something hungry. Ahead on the sun-splashed ledge, others were even now pulling themselves out of the water. Some were cradling injured limbs, one sailor bleeding from a gash on his face, and he saw Tori kneeling at the water’s edge. Her eyes locked on him and he saw relief spill across her features. She urged him on.

Then he was there, at the ledge. He hooked his right arm onto the rocky outcropping and tried to climb, but he could not raise his left. His head and arms were in sunlight now, but the water remained dark and deep and he felt the vulnerability of his legs so keenly that a scream began to build inside him. Frantic, he tried to scrabble up the jagged rock ledge.

A hand clamped on his right wrist and, as he looked up, Lieutenant Commander Sykes hauled him bodily from the water, pulling him out with such effort that the two collapsed on the slick ledge. As Sykes regained his feet, Josh took long gasping breaths, and the pain in his shoulder throbbed into hideous life. He held the arm against his chest and looked up at Sykes.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.” Though he knew getting out of the water was not the same as getting out alive.

Then Tori knelt beside him, her wet hair plastered to her face, eyes alight with fear and with something akin to fervor.

“You’re all right,” she told him. Only instead of reassurance, it sounded like a command. “Come on, get up. We have to get out of here.”

But as Josh rose and glanced around, he saw that would be easier said than done. They were in the vast sub-chamber beneath the bowl — beneath the level of the grotto entirely. A broad section of the bowl had caved in, but not everyone had been fortunate enough to hit the water. In the illumination from the shafts of sunlight that came down from above, he could make out at least four bodies — sailors who had struck the rocky edges of the pool — and one tangled wreck of limbs half-buried in the pile of shattered black stone. Someone from the descent team, he figured, who had been hanging underneath the shelf before it gave way.

Alena Boudreau had survived, and stood talking quietly to Dr. Ridge, her geologist, a few feet away. Both were saturated with water, the woman’s silver hair wet and stringy, making her suddenly look her age. Regardless of how well she’d maintained her body, this had to be hard on her.

Three sailors stood with Sykes right on the ledge, searching the water for signs of anyone else who had survived. But some of those who had landed in the subterranean pool had not surfaced. Josh knew without question that they would never surface. They had either been injured in the fall and drowned, or fallen prey to what swam in those waters.

“There!” one of the sailors shouted, pointing. “Did you see it?”

But Josh didn’t, and no one else seemed to. At least, no one spoke of it. Tense moments passed with all of them holding their breath, but no streak of white surfaced in the pool or darted just below the surface.

“Kaufmann,” one of the sailors said, the word either a curse or an indictment. “Fuck, Teddy, Kaufmann’s dead.”

“I know, man,” another sailor replied. “A lot of guys are dead.”

Josh steadied his breathing, forced himself to find control in the mire of his pain and fear. His sling remained around his neck, a sodden rag, and he worked it into place, every motion a fresh jolt. Then he stepped up beside Tori and followed her gaze upward.

“A second bowl,” he said.

“What?”

But he didn’t clarify. There was no need; she could see what he saw. They were down in a cave now. The upper bowl, the original chamber, had looked down into the mouth of the cave, which sloped inward to form what was, in essence, another bowl. At high tide, water would pour in through the cave mouth above them and the water level of the subterranean pool would rise. But the ledge where they had gathered, a slab of volcanic rock, put them thirty feet below the cave mouth. There would be no climbing back up.

Even if they did, he doubted they would be able to get through.

The shelf of the upper bowl had shattered and tons of black rock had crashed down like a landslide. Some of it had passed through the cave mouth and plunged into the water with and around them, but huge slabs and chunks had come to rest in the mouth of the cave, lodged there, blocking the rest from falling.

“We’re cut off,” Josh said.

“No,” Tori argued. “Look, there are plenty of openings. Tons of light getting through. They can put ropes down and pull us up.”

Sykes overheard. His boots scuffed the ledge as he turned to them. “No, they can’t. Josh is right. All that rockfall is unstable. It could give way at any time. If they put someone through one of those holes, the whole thing could come down and crush us all. They’d never risk it. If they try, I’ll order them not to. So will Captain Siebalt.”

“Are you kidding me? They have to try!”

Sykes no longer had his radio, but two of his men had managed to get theirs working. Static and voices hissed. From above, someone tried to hail them. Sykes turned his back and went to take the radio.

Josh swayed on his feet, pain surging again. If Sykes was right, they were all dead. He turned to see Alena Boudreau and Ridge watching them and made his way over to them, Tori quickly following.

“Dr. Boudreau, this is your operation. Talk to him. Get on the radio and tell them we’re down here,” Josh said. “Your grandson isn’t going to just leave you here.”

A line of pain formed on her forehead at the thought of her grandson, but she shook her head. “I’m afraid none of that really matters, Agent Hart.”

“How can you say it doesn’t matter?” Tori snapped. “I’m not going to die down here.”

Alena glanced at Ridge and took a deep breath, pressing a hand to her side. Josh wondered if she had broken some ribs or just bruised herself.

“Paul and I were just talking this through,” she said, a terrible wisdom and apology in her eyes. “Even if they came for us without first trying to remove some of the rockslide, to do so safely would take hours. We can’t afford that kind of time. The sun will keep shifting position and it won’t be long before there’s no direct sunlight down here at all. It may be that most of the creatures hibernate during the day, or that most are out in the deep water around the island, but I consider it sheer luck that we got onto this ledge alive.”

“All the more reason—” Josh started.

Alena shot him a dark look that silenced him.

“It’s worse,” she said, gaze shifting between him and Tori. “In case you’ve forgotten, the tide is coming in. The water level in the pool is going to rise. And up above, when the tide is high enough, it’s going to come pouring down on top of the tons of rock jammed into the cave mouth above us. That may bring the whole thing down, but even if it doesn’t, the water is still going to pour into this chamber. We don’t have until nightfall. If we stay here, we won’t even make it to high tide. Either we’ll drown, or they’ll come for us.”

Josh stared at her, feeling a connection with this woman, drawing on her strength. Despite the fate she had just described, she still did not seem beaten.

“You have an idea,” he said.

Alena nodded, then turned to Dr. Ridge.

The geologist clicked on a Maglite he’d had clipped to his belt. The sailors all had them as well, though none had turned them on as yet.

Ridge turned and shone the thin but powerful beam into the darkness behind him. Four or five yards away, the ledge rose into a jagged slope, at the top of which was the yawning black void of a narrow tunnel.

“There’s another way out,” Ridge said. “Can’t you feel the draft? The air’s moving in that direction.”

Now that he’d pointed it out, Josh could.

“Oh, my God,” Tori whispered, and the hope in her voice was palpable.

“At high tide, that tunnel will flood,” Sykes said from behind them.

They all turned to find that the lieutenant commander and his three surviving sailors had joined them, and overheard the last of the conversation.

Alena met Sykes’s gaze with her own, unwavering.

“Then we’d better get started.”