Below (26 page)

“Tommy!” The big deckhand called out in a thick accent, club still in hand, looking pitifully over the stern as his friend failed to surface. Even after the splash fully dissipated, all that was visible was a crowd of densely packed squid in the water. A squid squirted out of the water and away from the vessel, landing on a float at the edge of the net as it hit the water. MacDonald was hurrying to the far side of the boat.

Joe struggled with a range of emotions as the small man failed to surface. He turned to search for something he could extend to the deckhand and thought of the pole he had used to go after the camera. He realized it had probably floated off with the camera. “Val—see if you can find a pole, anything we can use to fish him out!”

“There was a dive light in the cabin.”

“What? No, we need—”

She rushed off without an explanation.

Joe could tell that Tomás was somewhere down in the compacted shoal, near the stern along the starboard side of the vessel, because the neat rows of squid were being disrupted by a disturbance beneath them. Somewhere down there, it appeared he might be struggling to surface. For a moment, Joe thought he saw the man’s hand.

“Dammit, Captain! He’s going to drown!” Joe turned to look for MacDonald, who was rushing back with a long pole, similar to the one Joe had lost—probably another gaff pole with the hook removed.

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Joe pointed to the water. “Somewhere around there, where the squid are agitated.”

The captain jammed the end of the ten-foot pole into the water. Joe turned and scanned the deck for something.
Anything
. He saw a life ring hanging above the wheelhouse and ran over to grab it.

He tossed the life ring down into the water, but felt stupid doing it. There was nothing much they could do. Val ran up with the dive light in hand. Karl was with her. She leaned over the edge and shined the bright light down onto the shoal. The squid attempted to move away from the light for a moment, but in the confined space the white beam only seemed to agitate the shoal. Rather than rest in place, they began to churn the water violently where the deckhand had disappeared.

“Dammit, woman! You’re making it worse!”

“I can see that, Captain!” She shut the light off. Alongside Joe and the big deckhand, she stared helplessly down at the water.

They watched as the captain cursed and used the pole to fish around for Tomás in the net full of squid. Joe’s life preserver bobbed untouched on the surface nearby. It grew quiet. As MacDonald swept the pole around in the net, several more squid propelled themselves into the air and landed on the ocean with loud smacks.

Suddenly the captain tensed. “I’ve got something.”

He pulled up furiously with both hands as the pole jerked downward. He grunted. “Need help!”

Joe and the big deckhand reached to help him, but just as they were about to grasp the pole MacDonald doubled over as an unseen force tore the pole from his grip. Joe grabbed the back of the captain’s belt as he almost went over the low gunwale. They watched as the pole disappeared under the surface.

All five stood shoulder-to-shoulder, silent, focused on the water. Tomás had been under for several minutes. There was no sign of him in the throng of squid, which had again assembled in organized fashion inside the net. Another minute passed slowly, the waves bumping indifferently against the hull and rocking the vessel. The big deckhand started to moan.

Most of the shoal still appeared to be confined inside the net. Some of the squid had managed to escape by going airborne, but many had landed back inside the net, while many more had never made the attempt. Joe noticed that the squid gathered in the net below them were gradually beginning to move downward, as though they were settling toward the bottom of their holding cell—or gathering around Tomás’s body.

He said, “Christ, are they headed down after him?”

The captain grimaced. No one answered.

S
omething else was bothering Joe. Captain MacDonald leaned heavily on his hands next to him, his head bowed, still looking over the side of the seiner. Fifteen minutes had passed since Tomás had gone under, and none of them had any illusions about his fate. Ari sat near the boom, still sobbing.

It was as if everything had ceased around them, the universe pausing for a moment to pay its respects to the poor man, whose lifeless body was probably now being consumed, or perhaps simply pressed against the bottom of the squid-filled net, eyes unseeing, lungs full of black seawater. Maybe the bastards would at least ignore the body as they focused on escaping. It was hard for Joe to tell what the squid were doing because he couldn’t see most of them.

Joe suddenly realized what was bothering him. “Captain, why aren’t they jumping anymore?”

MacDonald didn’t answer. Joe was about to repeat the question when he felt the vessel shudder almost imperceptibly. It felt different than when a wave struck a vessel. More sudden.

Val said, “Joe, what was that?” In the bright lights of the boom, she and Karl looked at him, wide-eyed.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe if we just open the net and release the squid, they’ll leave that man’s body here, intact? No research is worth what’s happening here.”

“I don’t know. Captain, what do you want to do?” Joe looked at MacDonald. He was still staring into the water. Joe asked again, gently. “Captain, I’m sorry about Tomás, but we need you to focus on the—”

The
Centaur
shuddered again, more noticeably.

“What the hell was that?” Joe followed the captain’s gaze down into the net. He couldn’t see the squid, as each last one had descended in the dark water.

“They’re sounding.” MacDonald spoke softly, almost in a whisper.

“What do you mean?”

There was a burst of activity underwater as hundreds of squid swelled upward toward the surface, a supernatural glow emanating from the black water as many of the animals produced pulses of pale light. A few seconds later, the shoal reversed direction and vanished toward the bottom of the net. The vessel shuddered again, and Joe felt the deck tip to the starboard side as a loud
twang
came from the taut cables running into the boom.

“The bastards are sounding, dammit!” The captain shoved past Joe toward the machinery in the stern.

“What the hell is he talking about, Val?”

“He means they’re trying to go deeper. They’re working together to try and escape through the bottom of the net!”

“Are they smart enough for that?”

The boat shook again. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Karl looked at her. “Yes, you do, Valerie.”

 

 

“You can’t do it! You’re not going anywhere, you sons of bitches!” At the stern, the captain shouted down at the shoal. The squid answered with another rush toward the bottom of the net. Joe stumbled as the boat tilted and spun a few degrees in a rapid jerk. He heard the lines and metal cables sing again, and the towering boom groaned as its steel frame was tested. Joe tried to picture the amount of squid that must be down there, capable of moving what had to be an eighty-ton vessel.

He noticed something bobbing on the surface of the water, alone above the net now that the squid had headed deeper. Tomás. His corpse was floating face-down. Joe heard the big deckhand moan when he saw his friend’s body.

“Captain, Tomás’s body—”

“No time for him now. He’s gone.”

“Can you cut the net free?”

“Cut it free?” The captain scowled. “You have any idea how much that net costs?”

Val said, “My God, you’re worried about the money? Can’t the shoal damage your boat, though? The net isn’t worth losing your boat, or our lives.”

“Weston can pay you for the net, Captain.” Karl spoke quickly. He was breathing fast. “Safety is paramount here—”

“Bastards could never hurt the
Centaur
. She’s too big. Hear me, you bastards? Wear yourselves out! I’m still going to brail you out and have one of you for supper !”

Joe watched as the shoal rose again, swirling to the surface like autumn leaves and bumping against the deckhand’s lifeless body as they regrouped for another go at the net. A flash of dim greenish light rippled through the shoal before its members descended in unison. The main cable running from the boom changed angle and hummed as the deck beneath Joe lurched. He looked up at the cable just as there was a loud pinging noise.

He thought he saw something flash on the boom and blinked instinctively. For a brief instant, his mind registered that something was about to strike his face.

 

 

Val heard more than saw the small metal part give way on the seiner’s boom. There was a piercing whine, which ended a split second later as the shard tore into Joe’s head. She watched in horror as his face erupted into a red mist with a sickening, audible crunch, spraying her face with blood. He instantly crumpled against her knees and onto the deck.

“Oh my God! Help me!”

The men rushed over to where Joe had fallen, but instead of kneeling to help Val, they merely stopped and stood motionless. She took hold of his shoulder and turned over his inert body. She gasped and covered her mouth with her palm as Joe’s arm fell limply to the deck.

He no longer had a face.

Where Joe’s nose and left eye had been was a gaping hole, the remaining eye white as it rolled back into the socket, twitching slightly. His tongue was visible inside his mouth, where the upper palate and teeth had also caved inward. Broken teeth slid down his tongue.

Val looked up at Karl. He shook his head, then reached down to squeeze her shoulder. Joe kicked her leg and she yelped, recoiling from the touch. She watched his legs jerk and extend on the deck, and then he was still. Karl tried to hug her. Ari had stopped sobbing. He yelled something inarticulate. The deck shuddered again as the shoal made a run.

Joe couldn’t actually be gone, could he? Had two men really just died in front of Val in the last few minutes? She felt as though she was watching some sort of sick dark play in which she was merely a spectator.

“He’s gone, Valerie. I’m sorry.” She realized Karl was still embracing her, trying to turn her away from Joe’s body. She knew Karl was right. She looked away from the warm corpse toward the ocean around them.

“My best mate’s gone, too.” The captain spat into the ocean. “And soon, so will be these goddamn squid.”

Val wiped at a tear and watched the man stride toward the front of his vessel, vaguely wondering why he wasn’t headed to the net to free it somehow. He climbed the steel stairs to the wheelhouse and disappeared inside.

She looked down to the water and saw the outline of the net near the surface. Tomás’s body was now bobbing against the hull of the
Centaur
in the dark waves. She leaned against Karl, watching, uncertain what the captain was planning to free the shoal. The boat lurched again as the squid made a run, and Karl held her shoulders to keep his balance.

“Valerie, we should move from here in case something else gives. Valerie?”

“Right. I’m sorry.”

“It is okay. But we need to move—” Karl stopped and stared at something over her shoulder.

She turned to see what he was looking at. The captain had reappeared from the cabin of the vessel and was hurrying toward them. In his thick hand was a stick of dynamite.

Its fuse was already lit.

W
hen Val saw the lit dynamite coming her way, she ducked behind a raised metal box on the deck that opened into the hold. Karl crouched down beside her. The captain strode past them without a glance as he headed for the stern.

“Valerie! Come with me!”

She realized Karl was pulling her along by the elbow. Together they raced toward the front of the vessel, away from the threat. She glanced back and saw the captain yelling at the shoal below, the fuse burning down in his hand.

The fuse was much longer than Val would have expected on a stick of dynamite, with another foot or more still unburned as the sparks inched toward the cylinder of nitroglycerin-based high explosive. The captain was yelling loudly enough for Val and Karl to hear his words.

“Goddamn you, you ungodly bastards! It’s you today, not me! And not my vessel! I’m sending you back to hell! You hear me?”

He paused to look at the explosive in his hand, only about six inches of fuse left now. Val and Karl had paused as well, in the doorway to the wheelhouse, each holding their breath and unable to pull away from the drama unfolding on the well-lit deck below them. The captain said something to himself, this time too quiet to be heard. Then he hurled the dynamite well away from the boat, into the water where the shoal was gathered inside the net.

 

 

The shoal was resting.

A visual cue had rippled through the mass of squid, a signal, as millions of photophores in their mantles lit up in a patterned response. After the signal flashed through them, they had gradually ceased moving.

Their attempts to escape confinement required great exertion. And individual sacrifice. Some of them now drifted lifelessly in the dim seawater, having been crushed against the wall of the net by the force of the others.

Yet not all the members of the shoal acted in unison. Within the hovering mass of motionless squid, several agitated individuals continued to flash from within, bumping into their passive brethren as they darted in every direction. Like the others in the shoal, the one-eyed female made no effort to calm the agitated rogues or cease their activity. She simply disregarded them in an effort to retain energy.

One of the rogue squid darted past her. It bore a new injury—a long tear in its left fin, just above the mantle. The obvious wound momentarily triggered an attack response in the one-eyed female. The injured rogue would be easy to overcome, but the impulse faded. Her instincts were clouded by confusion, her motivation to act lacking a clear direction in which to focus her energy. She watched the rogue jet upward through a clump of her gathered siblings, bouncing lightly off their soft bodies as it passed. Another larger female—it was her badly scarred sister—lashed out in response, tearing into the injured rogue’s mantle as it passed. It ignored the attack and continued to move toward the top of the shoal.

As the rogue neared the surface, the one-eyed female detected a powerful stimulus in the water.
Light.
A brightly lit object was descending from the ocean surface. The small object bore the signs of possible prey, and the rogue had turned to intercept it.

The object was painfully bright, its light faltering, yet somehow still burning with a fierce intensity. The rogue appeared immune to the damaging light. It snatched the thing up and darted away from a pursuing squid also seeking to claim it.

Intent on keeping the prize to itself, the rogue propelled its body horizontally through the dark water, but it quickly encountered the rough net wall. The one-eyed female watched as the squid changed direction and jetted sidewise, parallel to the inside of the net and away from her. It neared the massive, smooth structure on the surface that had been generating the deep sonic pulses. There the structure loomed alongside the net wall.

Although the large female retained a faint impulse to avoid the huge object as a possible threat, the rogue did not. It instead moved closer to it to escape its pursuer, but its rival flicked a tentacle out and briefly caught hold of the prize.

The rogue squid sent a burst of water through its siphons, hurtling itself against the net wall and colliding with the smooth surface. Just as it made contact, the light clutched in its arms winked out.

 

 

The captain had backed away from the gunwale, waiting for the detonation. Karl tugged at Val, and together they backed into the safety of the wheelhouse.

She peeked through the aft window and watched Ari move through the shadows on the deck, stumbling over Joe’s lifeless body. He stopped at the side of the seiner, leaning against the gunwale and looking toward the water where the dynamite had disappeared. Val knew there was a risk to him standing that close to the side, but the captain said nothing to him.

She opened her mouth to yell at him, but Karl pulled on her again and she ducked below the window and crawled toward the hatchway that led into the boat’s berthing area. As she and Karl scrambled around a corner into the first inner doorway, a small room on the portside that contained two stacked bunks covered in boxes, a deafening explosion thundered through their bodies.

Pain erupted in Val’s ears as the shock wave passed through the steel vessel.