Below (2 page)

T
he boat was gone. The group waited helplessly on the dark ocean, bobbing on the surface in the dim starlight.

Miguel noticed that several of the men had already turned on their flashlights underwater. Feet and legs, treading the water slowly, were faintly visible now. A few of the men, most of whom weren’t much older than his brother, were murmuring to one another. The rest were silent.

The ocean had felt very cold at first when it flooded through Miguel’s clothing as he had entered the water. Even in July, the waters off Southern California were cool. By the time the last person had entered the water, and the coyote had started up the
panga
and sped off to the south, the water felt warmer against his skin. The boat had vanished quickly into the darkness, its drone fading into the lapping sounds of the ocean.

Staying afloat was fairly easy, since the ocean was so saline and Miguel was comfortable in the water. But he was scared of the dark, the cold, the uncertainty. He knew the water would soon feel much colder, if the other boat didn’t arrive on time. And something else had been bothering him since they had plunged from the boat into the dark ocean.

“
Mano
, what happens next?” Miguel looked at his brother. “Who is picking us up? Where are we going?”

“
Está bien, manito
. Soon we will be safe in America. Everything will be okay.” Elías reached over and squeezed his arm, white teeth flashing in the faint light. But the smile disappeared, and his brother looked away.

Miguel floated next to Elías, each grasping the other’s shoulders. He looked around and realized that none of the other men were holding on to one another as they had been instructed to do. Self-conscious, he let go of his brother and treaded water several feet away from him. It was a calm sea. There was no need to hold on to anyone.

He looked down into the water at the flashlight in his hand. Why should he leave his light off? Besides, nobody would be able to see it underwater. He turned it on and directed it downward. In the bright beam, he could see his legs and feet clearly, but the dark ocean was hungry for the light and quickly absorbed it.

“Turn it off,
manito
. You don’t want to get caught, do you? Besides, you’re wasting the batteries.”

“In a minute.” Miguel knew his brother was right, but he was anxious.

Below the beam of the flashlight, in the depths beneath him, he saw nothing but immeasurable blackness. He looked at the undersides of the other men’s faces, illuminated eerily by the artificial light refracted through the waves. His gaze returned to his own feet again, and the blackness below them. He watched thousands of minute particles, white in the bright light, floating around his legs above the black, bottomless void.

He wondered what was down there.

 

 

The shoal abruptly slowed, in unison. There had been a new stimulus.

Not the familiar, expansive light from above, but small, moving lights. Possibly the lights of prey. Many large, black eyes near the front of the shoal sensed this. The lights had disappeared, but the stimulated individuals propelled themselves more rapidly upward, toward where the lights had been, followed closely by the rest of the immense gathering.

The shoal ascended quickly. It slowed after a short time, its members sensing that they were now close to where the lights had been. Above them, a single light reappeared. They were very close now.

They approached from below. The enormous mass of predators moved silently, invisibly through the ink-black water, slowly observing the light above. They rose and banked slowly around the light, assessing. There was movement in the light. The eyes in the shoal detected large objects in the weak illumination. Unfamiliar objects. This was not the small prey that glowed, and it was too close to the surface. Yet it was similar; it was living.

It might be prey.

As the light went out, the shoal began to change color, unnoticed even by its own members’ powerful eyes in the darkness. Several of them began emitting faint pulses of light from their bodies. Rapidly the shoal communicated. Many fins fluttered in the dark. The enormous mass of the shoal changed shape. Formerly packed into a huge ball, its members now slowly spread to form a massive circle around the extinguished light.

And moved toward it.

T
ravis Roche was thinking about the money.

He was floating far offshore in
Sea Plus
, his father’s thirty-five-foot fishing boat. He sat in the stern, alone in the dark, and sipped a bottle of Mexican beer as the salty breeze played through his unwashed sandy-blond hair.

Tonight’s gig sure paid well, and was less risky than when he had smuggled weed. Another midnight run to deliver a batch of wetbacks into SoCal. Last time, the grateful immigrants had paid him without protest, then hustled away in pairs once they had gotten to the dock, just like he had asked them to. Easy money.

That was it—all he had to do. When he reached the marina, his work ended. Hector had said the money would be even better this time, since there were supposed to be like fifteen guys. Travis didn’t care. There was plenty of room in the boat.

And what did it matter anyway? So many immigrants were crossing the border nowadays that a few more wouldn’t make much of a difference. But helping these ones would sure as hell pay for a sweet month in Baja this fall. Great surf and no crowds.

This far off the coast, Southern California was a different place. Slower, quieter, more relaxed. Travis sipped his beer and sent a stream through the gap in his front teeth, over the side of the boat. It was too humid to make out anything in the distance—even the lights of shore. He was thinking about how long he could surf in Baja with this cash when his cell phone began to chime on the dash.

Travis stood, walked barefoot over to check the new text message on the display. He touched a button and read the new message on the backlit screen:

The number of immigrants, and the UTM coordinates. A few minutes later, after he entered the GPS numbers into the boat’s Garmin, he flashed his spotlight to the south. Moments later, he noticed a distant light on the ocean, responding from some distance. He watched the light as it flashed four times again in rapid succession. It was definitely Hector.

He was about to make the drop, at the north Coronados location, just as they had planned on Travis’s last trip to Baja. This sort of open-ocean transfer, far from the coast and requiring immigrants to actually enter the water, was a pain in the ass. But they had to smuggle the immigrants this way so the Border Patrol wouldn’t ever be able to use its new toy—an unmanned Predator drone with cameras and infrared sensors. The drone could detect the meeting of two vessels offshore, close to the Mexican border, and a bunch of warm bodies moving from one boat to the other. It couldn’t detect body heat radiating through cold seawater, though, and this way would never record two vessels coming together.

With international terrorism a serious concern, the government was intensifying its security at the Mexican border, and offshore smuggling in particular. Illegal aliens were as desperate as ever to cross the border, and they were trying all kinds of methods to enter the States—tunneling into San Diego to emerge under old houses, navigating the desert on foot, stowing away in semi-trailer loads. And some tried to take boats to California. All the unimaginative boat runners moving immigrants into Southern California were getting nailed.

Not Travis and Hector. This would be their second successful operation. And as long as they didn’t attempt it too often, Travis figured he had found a way to pay for some mad surf trips to Central America. Maybe even Hawaii. Besides, Travis liked Mexicans. They just wanted a better life and all, right?

Travis drained the rest of the beer and tossed the bottle overboard as he moved toward the helm. He didn’t have time to screw around once the drop had been made, and knew he had to hurry. Even summer waters got cold if you spent too long out there, and currents could move a floating group far and fast. If he hurried, Travis could simply cruise over to the coordinates using the GPS and the previous visual cue from Hector. He would slow when he neared and look for flashlights, which Hector would have given to the men in the water. That was it. Piece of cake.

The operation was really quite simple, as long as the weather was good. They would have called it off otherwise.

Travis found the ignition and turned the key.

The boat didn’t start.

“Shit!” He turned the key again, but there was no response from the motor.

“Calm down, bro. You can figure this out.” Travis talked himself through the problem. He knew it wasn’t the battery, because the lights worked and he didn’t hear a clicking sound when he turned the key. Maybe the engine wouldn’t start if the prop was raised. He wasn’t sure, because he wasn’t much of a mechanic. He checked the prop, but it was down in the water. Swearing again, he walked back to the helm.

After several minutes, Travis laughed when he saw the problem. He had shut the boat off while still in gear, and left the throttle out of position. He popped the throttle back into neutral and turned the key. Relief washed through him when the motor immediately rumbled to life.

He would have to hurry now. That had cost him precious minutes. He eased the Boston Whaler forward until it pointed south, then gunned it. As the boat cut through the dark swells at more than twenty knots, rapidly closing the distance to his destination, Travis felt better. It was only two miles or so. Probably would take only five minutes or something. Travis liked the rush he got from doing this, the chance he could get caught. Kind of like riding a mondo wave.

Besides, he had to pay for his surfing somehow.

I
t was very still. The swells, small and gentle, made faint lapping sounds as they found the exposed shoulders of the men around Miguel. The water smelled of salt. He normally liked that smell, when he got to see the ocean. Now it only seemed foreign. He looked up at the stars. They were bright, but cold and distant. He shivered.

They had been floating in the darkness for what seemed a long time. The
panga
must have left them ten minutes ago. Or maybe twenty. He was sure the other boat should have already come. Was it coming at all?

Everyone in the group had grown quiet. A few men floating together nearby were saying something about the boat not coming, discussing what to do if it didn’t show soon. Miguel looked around, in every direction. He couldn’t see the lights of shore.

He looked down into the water again, wondering how far away the bottom was. His brother would be mad if he kept turning on the flashlight, but not being able to see anything was making him scared.

Miguel suddenly remembered his wristwatch, which his uncle had brought to him as a gift when he had visited from America. He pressed the button on its side and the face lit up, a bright green circle. It cast very little light in the water around him, but he could at least read the hands. He would watch the time, which would give him something to do. The light went out after several seconds, and he counted to thirty.

He lit up his watch again. Only twenty-two seconds had actually passed. In the greenish underwater glow, he could see small particles, green in the chemical light, floating around his jeans-clad legs and pale feet. Below that, nothing but blackness.

Just as the watch light went out, he thought he noticed something far below him.

Another faint light. No, not a light—a glow. A momentary, greenish glow, kind of like his watch, but coming from below him. Miguel’s heart jumped, and he felt a surge of adrenaline course through his body, accelerating his heartbeat. Had somebody dropped his flashlight? He became transfixed on the deep water, staring down past his feet to try and see the glow. He turned on his flashlight and shined it downward for a minute, then switched it off and stared down into the dark again as his eyes adjusted. A minute passed.

He was sure he saw it this time—a widespread, pale glow, faint but distinct. Down below him. Below all of them.

The other men began to whisper. Maybe they had seen it, too. Much of the water below and to his left had glowed faintly, but not all at once. The glow had rippled through the deep water, like firecrackers going off.

“
Mano
, did you see that? The light below us.
Qué es
?”

Miguel looked toward his brother, and realized he had drifted away from him in the past few minutes. Miguel was maybe twenty feet from the others now. He shouted at Elías again, and then raised his hand out of the water, pointing down with his flashlight so his brother could see. But the larger glow, coming from underneath them, was gone again.

“Turn off your fucking light,
manito
! Seriously. You want to get caught?”

“But did you see it?”

“I saw nothing. Only your fucking flashlight. Don’t worry. The boat will be here soon and we will be safe.
Oye!
You are too far away. Swim back to me.”

“But
mano
, there were lights under the water!”

His brother didn’t respond. Miguel looked down again, but only saw blackness. He strained to see the glow again. The brief pulse of glowing, greenish light had rippled widely, but had come from many different sources. It reminded him of a gathering of fireflies he had once seen when visiting his cousins in Mexico, but instead of yellow winking lights, these were pale, greenish glows.

Miguel’s heart pounded. He would use his watch to see. It was much dimmer. He turned his watch light on and directed the face underneath him, back and forth, trying to see something in the soft light it cast. But it was far too weak, and he saw nothing except for his slowly moving feet.

They were close now.

The lights had reappeared momentarily, inviting the attention of the gathered host. The shoal began to circle where the lights had been. Spiraling closer, shallower.

The sensitive eyes in the shoal no longer needed the lights to see the shapes that had emitted them. They could now clearly see the larger objects revealed in the dim starlight from above the ocean. The objects moved slowly, drifting, but the shoal sensed that they were living. Unfamiliar, but nonthreatening. Ripples of color moved through the shoal, as messages were sent. The mob swirled slowly closer, now very near the floating objects. It slowed, hung motionless in the ocean, each member emitting gentle pulses of water.

Another faint glow rippled through several members of the shoal. One of the largest individuals, a female with only one eye, was drawn to a specific floating object. A small glowing light flashed on this object.

The light of prey.

The large female watched as the glowing light moved rapidly; first it shot upward, disappeared, then reappeared again, darting side to side. Moving evasively, like prey. This excited her, and the shoal around her sensed her excitement.

And her aggression.

The shoal rippled with expectation, as though a shock wave had coursed through it. Slowly, the massive assemblage changed shape as aggressive, excited members surged toward the source of the light, forming a large finger protruding from the group. At the tip of the finger, the one-eyed female emitted several more rapid bursts of light. The eager members stretched out from the main body.

The small green light winked on, very close now. The large female moved toward the light that had drawn her focus. The moving light.

Tentatively, she touched it.

 

 

Something brushed Miguel’s wrist.

He quickly pulled his arm back, against his ribs, and watched in horror as some
thing
withdrew in the light of his watch. The light went out again.

Instantly Miguel was alert, his heart drumming in his chest. The thing that had touched him had been smooth, but firm. It had touched him gently, the way his grandmother rubbed his head. But it had not been human.

In the green wristwatch light, the thing had looked like some gigantic outstretched hand. A grotesque hand with impossibly huge, thick fingers wriggling away from the glowing watch face. Miguel began to breathe even faster as his adrenaline surged, and his heart pounded blood through his ears. He turned on his flashlight and swung it around beneath him, but saw nothing.

“Something touched me
, mano
!” He wanted to shout but could only muster a loud whisper. “It touched my skin.”

His brother looked at him in alarm. “What touched you,
manito
?”

“There!” Miguel shouted, drawing everyone’s attention.

“
Tiburón
!” The men began shouting at one man’s mention of a shark.

Something moved again at the edge of the flashlight beam, but it dodged the direct shaft of light so he couldn’t get a good look. It wasn’t a shark. No, not a shark or any other fish, even though Miguel thought he saw a fin.

It was big, like the sharks he’d seen dead on the beach, but it moved in an unfamiliar way. No, not it.
They
. As he redirected his flashlight, he saw more than one large shape moving at the outer limit cast by the artificial light. The shapes advanced, withdrew again. For several long moments, he stared down, not wanting to see anything, but even more afraid now that he couldn’t see anything in the beam.

The flashlight went out.

Miguel shook it, but it remained off. He pressed the button on the side of his watch and directed it toward his legs again. Nothing.

Just before the watch light went off, something darted toward him.

Pain shot up his arm as the thing gripped his wrist and released it, and he knew he was bleeding.

And then panic seized him.

 

 

She gripped the object and tugged, tiny teeth cutting into soft flesh as she squeezed and pulled. Then, abruptly, she released the object, assessing. Fat. Blood. Flesh. This was food.

The painfully brighter light that had appeared on the object moments ago had frightened her away briefly, but had now attracted the focused attention of many more in the shoal. Now the light had gone out, replaced again by the light of prey.

As the hungry one-eyed female eagerly moved to grip the fleshy body again, the others in the shoal sensed her excitement, were stirred by the thrashing prey, the blood now entering the water.

She advanced with the shoal and lashed out again, seizing the object, pulling it down. Two others quickly joined her, grasping and hooking the object, overwhelming it. With powerful thrusts, the hungry mass of writhing beasts began to pull the prey downward in the darkness.

 

 

For a split second, Miguel saw a large, pale shape glowing in the darkened water below him as he turned to swim away. As he kicked frantically toward his brother, the thing seized his foot.

This time, it did not let go.

He realized he was being dragged under when his screams were drowned by the water flooding his mouth. As his head went beneath the surface, he felt a powerful grasping on his legs, his arms. Grasping everywhere. Something sharp cut through his clothing and into his skin. He struggled to free himself, but had the terrible realization that he was being overwhelmed.

Miguel looked up in desperation and watched as several lights turned on above him. He was being pulled deeper. The lights rapidly dimmed as, impossibly fast, he was dragged down. More shapes rocketed toward him, clung to him, dug into him, covering his body. His ears protested loudly, painfully, as his eardrums ruptured suddenly in the mounting water pressure. The tiny flashlights had vanished far above him. Despite his pain and confusion, all he could think about was swimming up for air.

He was aware of something large and meaty wrapping around the side of his face, biting deeply into his neck.

Eating him.

A greenish light flashed near his face, and in the brief glow he saw a large, lidless eye. Then the thing on his face wrapped cold flesh around his head, enveloping it, mercifully covering his eyes.

He was still descending when everything went black.