Deeper (12 page)

You remember
going to the movies when you were a kid and taking in the cheesy horror
flicks?
 
There
 
was
almost always a scene where I
wanted to scream at one of the characters up on the big screen and tell them
not to be stupid.
 
It was obvious in a
lot of cases that whatever they were about to do was going to get them killed.

That was how I
felt about what I was doing in that nightmare.
 
I knew that going into the cave would be disastrous, but I couldn't make
my dream-self stop.
 
Instead I just
watched on, my stomach tight with tension and my heartbeat pounding the hell
out of my rib cage as I slipped into the dark opening and slid through the water
in search of something I couldn't even see.

There was
light coming from behind me, and I turned to see the other divers as they
approached.
 
All of them had lights, but
for some insane reason, my dream-self was too stupid to bring one.
 
So I made do, swimming in the lead and using
the light provided by smarter divers to see my way around.

The cave
wasn't very wide, or very deep for that matter.
 
But it led to another
tunnel,
a darker spot in
the darkness that I knew would be much larger.
 
I swam toward it, consciously terrified of how abysmally stupid my
dreaming self continued to be.

I went down
into the deeper darkness of the narrow tunnel, swimming with the casual grace
of a longtime diver, just like I knew I would be in the waking world, if I were
foolish enough to dive again.
 
My
dream-self went with all the confidence of a professional and the dreaming me
who observed everything tried to cry out warnings that fell on deaf ears and
left me wondering exactly when I'd grown terminally stupid.
 
And behind me the others followed suit, their
lights hinting at what lay ahead, showing me just enough to make me want to
scream as the forms came toward me from the darkness.
 
They were not human, but there were hints of
the human shape to them.
 
They had legs
and arms and heads.
 
Their skin was dark,
but not quite as dark as the rocks of the reef, and their eyes lit up with an
internal luminescence.

One of the
things grinned as it turned to face me, a flash of sharp teeth bared as the
thick lips pulled away from each other.
 
It could hardly be called a smile, the expression that revealed itself
on that shadowy face, because it turned downward at the edges.

Powerful legs
propelled the thing toward me with the speed of a torpedo.
 
The lights of the other divers lit just
enough of the thing to let me see the hands that came toward me, hands with
long, thick claws and heavy webbing between the fingers:
 
hands made to catch the water and claws made
to rip through flesh with the greatest of ease.

I woke up
gasping for breath and soaked in a heavy sweat.
 
The heaters were working on the
Isabella
but I still felt chilled.
 
In the
darkness of my cabin, I let out a moan of disgust and fear, and shivered.
 
The only sounds I heard were the waves
tapping along the stern of the yacht.

And then I
heard that long drawn out noise again, the same as the night before, a deep
bass thrumming noise that made my bones hum and my ears tingle.

Despite my
chill, I wanted to know what was out there.
 
I climbed out of bed and staggered to the window, looking out at the
waters and the distant reef.

Something
moved in the water, several somethings, actually.
 
Dark shapes that rose and dipped with the
waves, but broke through the waters and moved away from land toward the Devil's
Reef.
 
I watched them, unable to make out
more than vague black shapes in the water.
 
I didn't move to investigate this time, but instead did my best to make
out the forms for what they were.

They were gone
from sight in only a few minutes — gone, but not forgotten.

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Morning
brought a new series of challenges, but happily they weren't mine to deal
with.
 
The college kids and the older
passengers for the daylong dive were just boarding the
Isabella
when a police car pulled up on the docks with lights
flashing and a siren that died away as it stopped.

I stood on the
bow of the yacht and watched as two uniformed men approached the group and
brought them to a quick halt.
 
The cops
were just possibly the most brutal looking individuals I'd ever seen, with
broad shoulders, thick necks and all the swagger of the terminally cocky.

Charlie
slipped up next to me and offered a mug of coffee.
 
The day was cold and overcast, so I took the
offered drink and sipped it as quickly as the heat would allow.

"Any idea
what's going on down there, Charlie?"

"Diana
said the cops here like to give them shit from time to time.
 
It happened on the last expedition,
too."
 
He didn't seem overly worried
about it and neither did the professor or his students.

Sure enough,
as we watched, it was Diana who answered the questions from the local police,
and she answered them with a heated expression on her face.
 
The police officers looked absolutely
unperturbed by her attitude.
 
They merely
stood there with their thick arms crossed and looked at her, blinking slowly
and shaking their heads.

"Think I
should go down there and see what's happening?"
 
Charlie sounded a little anxious and I knew
why.
 
He was starting to fall for
Diana.
 
I'd known him long enough to
recognize the symptoms when it came to Charlie and infatuation.
 
I won't call it love, because I honestly
don't know that Charlie was ever capable of feeling love.
 
If so, he'd always hidden it well.

"No
.
They'll tell us when it's all said and done.
 
Why get yourself noticed by the local
cops?"
 
I could tell he wanted to
say more, but he understood what I was saying to him.
 
We were hired hands, and whatever the
problems were that the college team and the Parsonses were suffering, they made
no difference to whether or not we got paid.
 
It wasn't my place to interfere and it wasn't his place, either.
 
He didn't have to like it, but he had to deal
with it.

Sometimes I
wondered why Charlie even put up with me.

The
discussions down on the dock took a while, and probably would have gone on for
an hour or more, but Jacob Parsons stepped forward and pulled a sheaf of papers
out of his jacket pocket, handing them over to the policeman who was doing most
of the questioning.
 
After a quick
examination of the documents, the cop nodded his head curtly and then handed
them back.
 
A minute after that, Parsons,
his wife and the whole group of divers came on board.

Diana looked
pissed and none of the others seemed like they were in the mood to party.
 
I was thinking the day was off to a bad
start, and I have to tell you, I wasn't wrong.

The weather
started poorly and got worse from there.
 
The winds were picking up and the clouds that were darkening the day
grew heavier.
 
By the time we'd reached
our destination the sky was spitting fitfully and the water was choppy enough
to make the
Isabella
rock back and forth
even after I anchored her.
 
Still,
Charlie and everyone else got into their suits and climbed into their gear.

I thought
about my dream of the night before and had to restrain myself from turning the
yacht around and heading back toward the docks.
 
I was here to make a buck and maybe catch a few fish, not to investigate
whatever was under the water.
 
I'd told
myself at the beginning of the job that whatever they did out there wasn’t my
concern and I intended to keep it that way.

Jacob Parsons
watched them as they went into the water and paced a little, worriedly.
 
He headed my way and pulled out his
cigarettes.
 
He didn't bother asking but
just tossed one to me instead.
 
I figured
the man was going to destroy all my efforts to quit smoking and was grateful
for him.

"You look
worried."
 
He spoke the exact words
I was going to say to him and threw me for a loop in the process.

"Not my
job to be worried, Jacob.
 
I'm just here
to play tour guide."

He looked at
me with almost no expression and then nodded his head.
 
"Yeah, I can understand that.
 
But you still look worried."

He was
perceptive, and that annoyed me just a little.
 
"I didn't sleep much last night."
 
I couldn't think of anything else to
say.
 
We stood in silence for a few
minutes and then just to kill the time, I asked, "What was all that about
on the docks?"

"I get
the feeling the locals aren’t really thrilled to have us around."
 
Jacob pointed his chin at the Devil's
Reef.
 
"Seems like us doing dives
over here is bugging the hell out of them.
 
Unfortunately for them, I have all the paperwork and I have copies of
everything, to boot."

"Sounds
like you were expecting trouble."

"Try
working as a parapsychologist sometime.
 
You'd be amazed how many people don't like hearing there might be
something unnatural going on where they are."

"What?
 
Like you're to blame for whatever you might
find?"

"Oh, yeah.
 
Lots of that.
 
It's
like they think the property values will drop and their neighborhoods will turn
into a ghetto overnight."

"And does
it?
 
Drop the values, I mean?"

"Not hardly
."
 
He chuckled.
 
"I had one guy
call me and thank me.
 
Not only did he
get validation from us on his place being haunted, but he also had an offer
from a couple who wanted to buy the house and paid him almost twice what the
market value of the place was."

"Nothing
like free advertising, I guess."

"Exactly.
 
And
for all the people who scoff at ghost stories, there are a lot of folks who
want to experience a haunting firsthand."

"Well,
that's just fried."

"What?"
 
He smiled and put out his cigarette.
 
"Never wanted to know about life after
death?"

"I'm
still working on the life part.
 
I'm not
really in a hurry to check out the death thing."

"Now,
see, normally when I ask someone that question, they start spouting religious
doctrines."
 
He chuckled and shoved
his hands into his coat pockets.

"Never
much cared for church philosophies."
 
I shrugged.
 
"I figure I'll
skip the middleman."
 
I looked back
over
a the
town in the distance and felt a
shiver.
 
"You think the locals can
cause you a lot of trouble?"

"I figure
they'll want to, especially if they decide they have something to hide."

"Like
what?"

"Like
their own Bermuda Triangle, if the stories are true."

"How are
you going to find out if there's any truth to them?"

"Research, research, research.
 
There are always things you can learn with
research."

"Thanks,
but I still prefer fishing."

Jacob winked
at me and settled himself a little closer to the wall of the cabin.
 
"Well, I would, but there's that whole
water thing that slows me down."

"Now,
see, my grandfather always said the only way to beat a fear is to face it.
"
I looked at him and watched his face carefully.
 
I was teasing, but doing my best not to let
it show.
 
Who the hell was I to talk
about facing your fears when I was watching other people take a dive into the
caves that I was growing more and more fascinated by?
 
I mean, seriously, I was scared of getting
stuck underwater and he was just plain scared of the water.

Jacob looked
at me for several seconds, his face back in that poker expression that made me
know he wouldn’t be a good man to underestimate.
 
"That's on the agenda already, remember,
Joe?
 
I'm diving once the whole thing has
been mapped."

I nodded and
kept my mouth shut after that.
 
He had
the balls to face his fear.
 
Me?
 
I was perfectly fine watching from the
sidelines.
 
At least that's what I kept
trying to tell myself.

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