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“I
’ve got one, Dad!”

John Whittaker’s twelve-year-old niece leaned back, bracing her hip against the gunwale and pulling hard on the fishing pole. Something had just taken her line. From the looks of it, something big.

“All right, Megan!” John shouted. He watched as Megan’s dad, his older brother, put his own rod in a holder on the side and rushed over to help her. Megan was struggling to control the powerful fish that had just struck her jig. John’s niece was a tomboy, and strong for her age, but out here there were some really big fish. If she had hooked a bluefin or albacore instead of a yellowtail, she might easily have a fifty-pounder on the line.

The yellowtail had been arriving off Southern California for a week now, in their seasonal northern migration as the local waters warmed to around seventy degrees. Every summer for the past four years, John had brought his niece and older brother, Daryl, out with him to fish the yellowtail runs and hope for an occasional hefty tuna—both were fish species that lingered off the Southern California coast for a few months each year. Yellowtail amberjacks were John and Daryl’s favorite game fish—they put up a real fight and later yielded a decent homemade sushi. Besides, fishing for yellowtails was probably Megan’s favorite thing to do, and John loved the chance to make his niece smile.

The trio had been out all afternoon, plying the waters about five miles off La Jolla in John’s sturdy boat. He had focused on the area where the continental shelf abruptly ended and the bottom plunged dramatically to the abyssal plain thousands of feet down. Until fifteen minutes ago, they hadn’t had a bite. All John had seen on the depth finder had been smaller fish, and nothing had struck the trolling lines.

Then their luck had finally changed.

Just as the sun was setting over the ocean and John was about to turn the twenty-three-foot vessel for the harbor, he had located a large school of fish below them, maybe a hundred and thirty feet down. Based on the size of the sonar readings, John knew they could be over a school of yellowtails. They had removed the trolling lures and dropped John’s new jigs over the side, letting the line spool out over a hundred feet. Almost immediately, Daryl had hooked a yellowtail and handed the pole to his daughter to reel in. Megan’s excitement as she hauled in the fish had been contagious, and they were all laughing and hooting as they landed three more yellowtail as twilight darkened the sky around them.

John had tried many lures and baits to catch yellowtail over the years, including live anchovies, frozen market squid, and chum, but this time he had brought out his new candy-bar-sized glow-in-the-dark lures. Each hollow lure had three sets of treble hooks and housed a glow-in-the-dark insert that a friend had told him drove the fish crazy. His buddy had been right.

Now Megan and her father were struggling with something else on her line, something much larger than the fifteen- to twenty-pound yellowtails now thrashing inside the bait cooler at the stern as they fought off death. John suspected they had just hooked an albacore—that would be a real treat.

“You guys think you can handle that?” John asked.

“I’ve got a really big one, Uncle John! I can’t reel him in!”

Megan’s straight brown hair hung in her face as she strained to control her fishing rod, despite the fact that her father was leaning over her and grasping the pole with his hand as well.

“She’s not kidding, John. This one’s a real monster!” Daryl looked as enthusiastic as his daughter. John knew the feeling. The great thing about deep-sea fishing was that you never knew what you had on the other end of the line.

Suddenly, the pole jerked downward with such force that it slammed Megan’s hands into the gunwale.

“Shit! My fingers!” Megan cried out and let go with one hand, but her dad maintained his grip on the pole. She held her hand against her thigh and grimaced.

“Watch your language, honey,” Daryl said. “Here, hand me the pole.”

He took the fishing rod firmly in both hands and pulled up on it in an effort to create enough slack to reel the fish in. The pole jerked violently downward again, pulling Daryl’s portly two-hundred-pound frame into the side of the boat, then popped up again so rapidly that he staggered back into the boat and nearly fell over backward.

“Christ, it broke the line!” Daryl shouted.

“That’s fifty-pound test. Are you sure?”

“There’s nothing on here, John.” He reeled in the slack line.

John slid his own rod into a holder on the stern, then tossed his baseball cap onto the dash and plopped down in the driver’s seat to look at the depth finder. He saw vague, unfamiliar shapes on the display that hadn’t been there before, mostly around a hundred and fifty feet down, with a bottom depth of two hundred and twenty-three feet. He realized they were into something new.

“Looks like we might have a school of albacore or bluefin under us, guys. Holy shit, that’s one big school of fish. Keep an eye on that other pole, Megan!”

“You really think an albacore could have broken that line, John?” Daryl frowned, but his bearded face was still flushed with excitement.

“I don’t know. Maybe a shark’s in the mix.” A mako shark’s teeth could easily have severed the line.

John picked up his rod again, lowered the jig until his pole tip hit the surface of the water, then jerked it several times up and down. Next he would reel it quickly toward the surface to see if anything gave chase. On his fourth and final upward jig, just as he planned to start reeling, his rod was nearly wrenched from his hands as he hooked something heavy.

“Got one!” John tightened his grip as the fish made a powerful run. “Guys, this thing is huge!”

He pulled back on the rod, lifting the tip up, then reeled line in quickly as he lowered the tip, before tension could build on the line. He repeated the process a few times, marveling at the resistance on the other end of the line, as he fought the fish toward the surface.

“Whoa! We’ve got another!” Daryl rushed toward the other rod on the port side, still braced in its holder. “Megan, you better let me get this one.”

John continued reeling in his catch, periodically letting the fish strip out line as it fought to head into deeper water. Gradually the quarry tired, and after several minutes it no longer made powerful runs on the line. John looked over at his niece, who stood beside her father, staring down into the dark water.

“Megan, this is a big one, but it’s tiring. I think you can handle it now.” John looked at the hand she had smacked against the boat, still clutched at her side. “How’s your hand?”

“It’s okay. Can I reel it in? You don’t mind, really?”

“I’ve caught plenty of these before. You ready?”

Megan smiled and nodded. John muscled the tip of the rod high in the air, gaining a moment of slack, then quickly handed the rod down to his niece. Megan grabbed the pole in a white-knuckled grip and started reeling, but almost immediately was stopped as the fish went on another run.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough!”

“You’ll be all right, sweetie. I’m right here if you need help.”

John watched for five more minutes as his niece fought to draw the fish in closer to the boat. When he figured their catch was nearing the boat, he stepped to the far side of the boat and reached into an open side compartment, pulling out a sharp gaff with a long, wooden handle.

“Uncle John, what was that?” Megan’s expression had changed. She looked frightened.

“What was what? What did you see?”

“There was a glow in the water. The water under the boat lit up.”

John stepped near her and looked over the side of the boat, down the taut line, squinting his eyes.

“I don’t see anything, hon. You’re just tired. Don’t worry—you’ve almost got this sucker landed. Just a few more minutes.”

John looked over at his brother, who was still fighting to land his own fish. John peered down into the water again, searching for Megan’s jig. It should be close now. There. The glowing, fluorescent jig appeared, maybe ten or fifteen feet down. Something big was hooked to it, but it was hard to see in the evening light.

“Okay, Megan, there he is. Try to lift your pole tip.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

John leaned forward, out over the side of the boat, lowering the fist-sized hook at the end of the gaff into the water, as Megan strained against the line, lifting the tip and grunting.

The glowing lure drew closer. John grasped the chrome boat rail in his left hand and dipped the gaff as deep into the water as he could. The lure moved a few feet closer. Something was
squirming
around it. The writhing thing in the water was not a tuna.

“What the hell . . . ?” John flinched away from the water, yanking his arm back toward the boat. In the faint glow near the jig, something twisted and turned itself around the line. Something soft. Pulpy.

“What is it, Uncle John?” Megan was breathing hard.

“I don’t know. Let me pull it closer.”

John grasped a fistful of the line with his free hand and pulled the jig toward the boat. He didn’t want to gaff this thing and bring it on board until he knew what it was. As the creature reached the surface, several snakelike arms broke through the waves around the lure. Above the arms appeared a large, black eye, staring up at them. As John looked into the eye, a powerful jet of cold water struck him full in the face, entering his eyes and open mouth. He jerked his head away and closed his eyes.

“Fuck!” John spat out the seawater, which had a funny taste. He kept his eyes shut—he didn’t want his contact lenses to pop out. As he wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, they started to burn.

“It’s pulling me!” Megan yelled. “I can’t hold on!”

“Just drop the pole, honey!”

John rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the burning water out of them.

“Uncle John! Dad, help!” Megan shrieked. “My sleeve is caught!”

John managed to open his burning eyes a slit. Megan was leaning far over the side of the boat, bent double toward the water. He could see that her Windbreaker was stuck to the pole or line somehow. As he lunged toward her, her left arm was wrenched downward. Her feet lifted off the wet surface of the boat and she went over the side and into the water with a loud splash.

“Megan!” Her father looked over his shoulder, still struggling with his line. “John, get her back in the boat!”

“I’m trying, goddammit!” John fell forward in the boat, still wiping at his eyes with his sleeve as he searched for the life preserver. He managed to get his eyes open and saw that his arm was covered in a black, inky liquid. He grabbed the life ring from its hook and stepped toward the stern. The black fluid was all over the bottom of the boat. Smeared footprints still showed where Megan had stood.

John looked over the side of the boat. He saw only dark waves rolling into the side of the boat. It was nearly night, and the light was very dim, but the waves were small. Why couldn’t he see her? He felt a surge of panic.

“Megan! Megan!”

Daryl shouted, “John, where the hell is Megan?” He stopped reeling and looked anxiously at John.

“Jesus Christ! She was somehow caught in her line. . . .” John was rooted in place, unable to move as he realized his niece was right then being dragged under by the thing at the end of her line. He couldn’t think. In the water under the boat, out of nowhere appeared a brief glow, then another momentary flash of light. Then he heard a splash.

“Megan!” Daryl had dropped his rod into the water. He crashed against John, shoving his brother to the side. For a second, maybe two, he looked down into the water for his daughter. He yelled her name again, then took a quick step up onto the gunwale and dove into the dark water.

 

 

From above them, the large females in the shoal felt the vibration pass through their soft bodies as a substantial object hit the surface of the water.

After starting to feed on her living sister, the dominant one-eyed female had become hooked to the glowing green prey in her sister’s arms and had released her meal before her brethren could overtake her in a similar fashion. She struggled to free herself from the unexpected upward pull of the object. With a sudden burst of power, she fought against it, then immediately stopped moving upward, the glowing thing becoming immobile in her grasp. Furiously she crushed it in her beak, spilling only a bitter fluid, then released the inedible object and swam back toward her wounded sister.

Many more in the shoal had already descended upon the dying female and had managed to tear away much of her flesh. The one-eyed female turned to pursue another group that had detached from the shoal and was headed rapidly to the surface, following another glowing object.

As she neared the surface, something large that had entered the water was dragged down past her, obscured by a writhing huddle of her brethren. Prey. But her attention quickly was diverted by another large, heavy object that created a sharp vibration as it entered the water a moment later.

She moved upward toward the source of the vibration. She immediately sensed that the object was prey, familiar prey, something she had fed on before. Her instincts told her that this creature and the other that had just been swarmed by the mass of her kin were food.

She turned her body slightly to fix her single eye on the prey and assess its defenses. Through the darting members of the shoal, she sensed that the large creature swimming down toward her in the darkening water was nearly her size and weight, but moved clumsily, slowly in the water. It must be dead or dying, and was therefore likely incapable of defending itself. As she closed to within a body length of the prey, she saw its two eyes fixed on her own.

Suddenly the prey moved faster than it had before, thrusting its head toward the surface and thrashing its lower half, its two legs propelling its thick body toward the surface.