What Lurks Beneath (30 page)

“S
o it
is
an octopus?” Mack said.

“Maybe. A cephalopod, for sure, but it's definitely an undescribed species.”

He sat beside Val in the backseat of Mars's taxi. They were barreling down the highway, passing oncoming cars dangerously as they headed back toward the resort. Piled behind them, in the back of the van, was DORA and their scuba gear.

“So how big is this thing?” Mars said, glancing at Val in the rearview mirror.

“Depends on how much of the arm we were looking at. I'd have to see more to be sure, but this animal has gotta be at least fifty or sixty feet across, arm tip to arm tip. Maybe much larger than that, based on what you described. That makes it far bigger than any known species of cephalopod.”

“Even a giant squid?”

She swallowed. “A lot bigger than that. But we need to focus on how it got into that tank.”

Mack said, “So you can figure out where it can leave?”

“Exactly.”

He looked out the window, then back at her. There was a fire in his eyes. “Maybe we shouldn't let it leave,” he said.

She looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“It's trapped. Right now. Now's our chance to kill it.”

She shook her head. “No, Mack. This isn't about revenge.”

“You're right. It's about stopping that fuck from killing anyone else. Stop being a biologist for a minute, will you?”

“I'm not having this conversation.” She looked away from him. Mars glanced at them in the mirror.

Finally, Mack said, “So how
do
you think it got in there?”

“I don't know. But octopuses can fit through very small openings. And they're the smartest invertebrates on the planet.”

 

 

As they wheeled their equipment through the resort on a luggage cart, a gurney rolled past, pushed by two EMTs, the motionless figure strapped to it hidden under a sheet. The police and other EMS were all on scene now, and together with resort staff and good Samaritans had retrieved another three bodies that had floated up from the flooded tunnels. Apparently, the US Navy had also been alerted.

The authorities were still trying to make sense of the stories they'd heard from the witnesses at the lagoon. Firefighters were working to get dive gear together to search for the missing. They were smart enough to know they couldn't go in now. Nobody else had seen anything in the tank, but it was probably still in there. Val convinced them to hold off longer, to wait for Eric to explore the space with his ROV.

After the gurney was gone, they continued rolling toward the tank. Mack turned to her.

“How did that thing get so big? And how could it remain hidden until now?”

“Obviously, it's a new species.” She thought for a moment. “Ever heard of Humboldt squid?”

“No.”

“Well, they don't live around here. Anyway, they're animals I've studied for years. They spend a lot of time in colder, low-oxygen waters to slow their rapid metabolisms and devote more energy to growth. Giant squid get big for similar reasons. Maybe the deepwater offshore environment, the anoxic blue holes running under these islands, have the same effect—they keep these octopuses alive longer and allow more calories to go into size, like any cold-blooded animal.”

“What do you mean, ‘these octopuses'?” Mack said. “You think there's more than one?”

“Hopefully not here, now, but there have to be others. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to breed.”

He frowned and spat on the ground.

When they arrived she left the cart by the flooded stairwell and walked over to where she could look down into the water of the ruined aquarium. A yellow line of police tape now ringed the water, and all entrances to the flooded tunnels. Security and police were keeping bystanders fifty or more feet away. But tourists were everywhere, and many others also lined the balconies of the hotel's towers, trying to film everything from a distance.

Looking down into the clearing water of what had been Pirate's Cove, she wondered where the massive octopus was now. Nobody had seen it since it went after Eric. She wondered if there was any hope, if there could be any survivors in the submerged tunnels, where Sturman and the others had been. They'd already been missing for almost an hour, and if they weren't somewhere safe, where they could breathe . . . She realized she had again touched her belly.

No.
She pushed the thought from her mind.

“You hear about the Navy yet?” Mack said, limping over to her.

“What now?”

“Looks like a warship is headed this way.”

“What for? They going to blow up the resort?”

“If they want to help, I say let 'em. They got more resources than anyone else on Andros. And their weapons could really come in handy right now.”

“Is Will's friend coming?”

“I don't know. But they'll be here soon.”

Val thought of the gift from the Obeah woman. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the whale-shaped talisman. The one that smelled like ambergris. She stared at it for a moment.

Valerie Martell was not a superstitious woman. But as the first heavy drops of rain hit her face and began to spatter the concrete, she fastened the leather thong around her neck.

S
turman wondered if anyone else knew the water level was rising.

They were at a dead end. The surface was still far above them, and because the tunnel construction was occurring from below—Barbas said it was because he didn't want to disrupt the resort grounds until the tunnel was almost finished—there was no way out except past the octopus.

They were trapped, and nobody was coming for them. Not coming in time, anyway.

The water had risen from Sturman's hips to his abdomen, and he knew it was because the construction workers had previously drilled a few narrow, vertical holes down from above to permit fresh air to enter the shaft. A wise move, but one that might cost them now. If the holes hadn't been there, the water wouldn't be able to fill the tunnel completely, because there wouldn't be anywhere for the subterranean air to escape.

He'd first become aware of the holes when he heard rainwater dripping down through them, between the muted rumbles of thunder. Now, with the cordless light turned off to save the little remaining battery power, his eyes had adjusted and he could see the ventilation holes as tiny, brighter spots in the ceiling—one ten feet from him, the other one maybe thirty feet farther away. They cast weak cones of light into the darkness.

But the holes were only a few inches wide. They might provide air, even communication to the surface, but nothing more. Sturman and the others had shouted into them for ten minutes, but nobody had called back. Barbas was furious at his staff.

And there was another problem. Sturman was also starting to hear things, and struggling to concentrate. Oxygen deprivation, or else there was some noxious gas trapped down here. Because even though the holes in the ceiling were designed to allow air to flow in, it was only flowing out now, with the water rising up from below and pushing it out. The air they were breathing smelled a little like gasoline, or paint thinner.

“The Beast out of the Sea,” he whispered.

“What?” Ashley said.

“From the Book of Revelation. I know you're a Christian. Saw the cross you wear around your neck earlier.”

“Yes. My faith's important to me. Are you a believer?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe. Don't go to church anymore. When I was a kid, before my mom died, she made my brother and me read the Bible. I got into Noah's Ark, the leviathan . . . and the Beast out of the Sea. That one painted quite a mental picture.”

After a pause, Ashley whispered: “ ‘And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name
.
'”

“How can you remember all that?”

“As a child, I spent a lot of time in church.”

“That's all nonsense,” Barbas said from the far corner. “There is no God.”

“Ignore him,” Sturman said. “He may be rich, but he doesn't know shit.”

In the near darkness, the boy was now either asleep or unconscious. Sturman grunted, the muscles in his arms burning. Holding the kid's deadweight was like supporting a sixty-pound bag of sand. At least the rising water had started to help support some of his weight.

He was becoming increasingly lightheaded. And he was getting a headache. They all were. The toxic air was affecting his ability to form focused thoughts. But he couldn't figure out why nobody had thought to try to contact possible survivors through the air holes.

“We can't wait any longer,” Ashley said quietly, sounding tired. “We need to do something.”

“What do you mean?” It was Barbas's deep voice.

“You know what I mean. There's something wrong with the air. And the water's rising.”

“What can we possibly do?” Barbas said, panting. “We need to wait. Maybe they are making progress.”

Sturman said, “No. She's right. We may be dead before they can get here. They need to know we're alive.”

“And how do we tell them?” Barbas said.

“Someone needs to swim out.”

“What?” Barbas laughed nervously. “Where? Where will we swim? That thing is still out there. Or else . . . or else help would be here now. And the tunnel entrance is hundreds of feet away.”

“Maybe,” Sturman said. But he knew that there was only one possible option. Only one way out.

“Well, I'm not going anywhere,” Barbas said.

“I can't go,” Ashley said. “I'm sorry. I'm a good swimmer, but not that good. It's much too far.”

Sturman felt an overwhelming urge for a drink. He pushed the thought from his mind, hating himself, wishing he had thought only of Val, of his survival, as motivation for getting out—and not of alcohol.

“I'll go,” Sturman said.

He waited for more protest, but the others were silent.

“Finally, Barbas, you don't argue with me,” Sturman said, smiling.

Barbas said, “Why? It's a fool's errand. You'll barely make it back to the main tunnel.”

“Maybe. But we're almost out of time. Someone take the boy.”

“Give him to me,” Ashley said.

In the near darkness, she waded toward Barbas first, though, and Sturman figured she was probably handing him the light. She then came toward Sturman. He moved to meet her and gently lifted the boy toward her. He felt her arms wrap around his inert form. He didn't struggle.

Maybe the boy was worse off than they were, taking in more of the toxic air, with a faster heartbeat and higher metabolism. Maybe by leaving now, regardless of what happened to him, Sturman would buy the others just enough time. He had to. He didn't really know these people, what they had done in their lives, but the boy, at least, deserved to live.

“If I don't come back, and nobody else does, keep shouting every few minutes,” Sturman said.

Ashley said, “Good luck, Will.”

Sturman moved away from the others, back toward the main tunnel. He realized his heavy Western boots were still on, making it harder to swim. Holding on to the wall, he removed them and let them sink to the bottom.

Soon the rising water's surface met the angled ceiling. He held his breath and dipped his head under, to gauge what he was in for, to see how dark it was under water. He could make out almost nothing in the darkness. But he heard a sound. A faint whirring.

He came up for air and shook his head to clear it.
Only your imagination.
He would probably pass out before he made it even back to the door.

Treading water, he said a silent prayer. What a fool he'd been. He'd actually had thoughts of suicide in his life, even recently. He'd made so many mistakes. Wasted so much of his time here. He took a few deep breaths, but his head felt the same.

So be it. He took three more deep breaths, exhaling loudly each time to clear the carbon dioxide from his body. To have any chance, he would need to stay down for a long time. He slid under again.

There was another sound underwater, a loud clang. He was not imagining it. It was very close, sounding like it came from the door. He felt movement in the water, a stirring. Something was coming toward him.

He spun and kicked away from it, back toward the others. Reaching the air pocket, he popped out of the water, gasping for breath. He swore.

“What is it?” Barbas said.

“It's coming back,” he said. “Now.”

He swam to where his feet met the sloping bottom and splashed back toward Ashley, toward the corner, and found the handle of one of the pickaxes. He hefted it. The tool felt so small, so useless as he pictured the beast, pressed against the aquarium glass, its immense form blocking out everything else. He braced his feet on the bottom.

“Barbas, when it gets here, turn the light on,” he said.

The surface of the water rippled as it rose toward them.

“I
've found someone!” Eric shouted.

Val, who'd been standing a few feet away at the window, watching the storm, turned to join him and Mack at the computer. Eric sat with his laptop on the desk, connected to power cables that ran out the door and into the rain. It was now coming down in sheets.

They had moved into the hotel's security offices, not far from the flooded tunnel, into a small A/V room, where a panel of monitors used to survey the grounds dominated the small space. Outside the small room, police were gathered inside the offices, along with a small group of Navy personnel now on scene, all trying to come up with a strategy. They'd finally located a tunnel schematic, which apparently lacked the new construction areas, but nobody had any safe ideas for a rescue. So they'd allowed DORA to go down to lessen the risk of casualties—after Val had told them it would be sort of like using an underwater drone.

Eric had carefully placed the ROV into the water twenty minutes ago, in the flooded exit stairwell, and run her power cables back to the security offices a short distance away, at the base of a hotel tower. After firing her up and piloting her down the dark, nondescript passage for a little over a hundred feet, he'd encountered a pile of rubble, perhaps where the tunnel had caved in from the power of the rushing water. It had taken him several long minutes to find a way through. They were running low-light so as not to attract attention, using only a weak LED for illumination, with the camera set for maximum light sensitivity. The resulting effect on the screen was what looked like a film negative.

There had still been no sign of the octopus. Perhaps it had somehow left. They had seen a dead resort worker, though, whose body had been jammed between two chunks of rock or concrete from the force of the outrushing water.

Moments later, the ROV had come across a mutilated metal door against the tunnel wall, hanging from its hinges, where a maintenance man had said the new construction tunnel led off. Eric and Val exchanged a glance before he turned the ROV into the doorway. Then they'd seen movement on the screen.

What might have been jeans-clad, kicking legs now reappeared on the screen, and then what appeared to be a bare foot nearly struck the camera on the front of the ROV.

“Is that a leg?” Mack asked.

The door to the A/V room swung open. It was Will Sturman's Navy buddy, Tom Rabinowitz, wearing a drenched raincoat over his khaki uniform. He was a shorter man, with close-cut brown hair and a slight paunch. As part of the Navy contingent on site now, he'd met them upon their arrival and quickly persuaded his commanding officer to let him be the Navy's official observer of their ROV effort, since Sturman was his friend.

“What's going on?” he said.

Eric said, “I think the ROV just found someone. A survivor.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. But look . . . this one is definitely moving. They're alive.”

The screen went all-white.

“What's wrong now?” Mack growled.

“It's blinded,” Rabinowitz said.

Eric nodded. “Right. I think someone turned on a bright light. We'll switch off high sensitivity, and use DORA's other lights.”

The image on the screen regained clarity. DORA seemed to be pointed downward. Two sets of bare feet, standing on the bottom, were partially visible on the monitor. The camera suddenly started to turn sideways.

Eric said, “I'm not doing that. They must see us. . . .”

On the laptop monitor a man's squinting face, distorted in the fish-eye view, appeared as he trained DORA's camera on himself.

“Will!” Val said. She put a hand over her mouth.

“I'll be damned,” Rabinowitz said, smiling. “Way to go, Sturman, you lucky bastard!”

Sturman looked pale, exhausted, and from the shaking camera he might have been shivering. But he didn't appear hurt. Val felt a huge weight lift off her chest. He was alive, but definitely not out of the woods.

He held his hand in front of his face and pointed first to himself, then held up three fingers. He then turned the camera on someone else in the tunnel: It was the resort's owner. Then, on a young boy, clinging to someone's shoulder, then . . .

“Ashley!” Eric yelled as her face filled the screen. She looked scared, but she was smiling. “All right, then!”

The camera went back to Sturman. “So it looks like there are four survivors in that air pocket,” Mack said.

“Right,” said Rabinowitz. “Wait . . . Sturman's doing something.”

Sturman held the camera back from his face. He mimicked choking himself with one hand, drew his index finger across his throat. He paused, pointed downward with a finger and then lifted a hand, palm down. Then he pointed upward, jabbing with his finger, and held up two fingers in a V.

“What you make of that?” Eric said.

Val said, “He's trying to tell us they're out of air. Or almost out. And maybe that the water is rising. They're in trouble.” She bit her lip. “But I don't know what the two fingers are for . . . Something that starts with a ‘V'? Or two of something?”

Rabinowitz said, “I don't know. But I need to tell my CO we have survivors. Maybe we can get a dive team in there.” He hurried out of the room.

Sturman turned the camera off himself and set it back in the water.

Eric said, “They aren't really going to send Navy divers in, are they? That thing's in there.”

“I don't know,” Val said. “Eric, just get DORA back out here to us. As fast as you can.”

“All right.” On the screen, the tunnel walls began to move past, more clear now that the headlights were on.

“You think your ROV can bring a scuba tank back to them?” she said.

He frowned. “Maybe. But it could easily get stuck.”

She turned to her uncle. “Mack, let's get a tank ready anyway. Maybe we can rig something.”

He grunted and left the room.

Val sat down by Eric. “Will kept pointing upward, at the tunnel ceiling, or the ground above. And held up two fingers. What do you think he meant by that?”

“Beats me.”

“We need to figure out what's right above that part of the construction tunnel.”

 

 

The octopus stirred.

She had been resting, gathering her strength before she resumed her own search for a way out. Before something had alerted her to its presence. She waited, wondering what she had sensed or tasted.

She sensed a whirring sound, and extending a tentacle toward it she felt a light movement in the water. It was close. Her eyes focused in the direction of the sound, and then she saw lights.

Another arm uncoiled. Slithered toward it.

As the arms moved to meet the object, her eyes focused on it. There was definitely something there, coming out of the side tunnel, something the size and shape of a large fish. But it didn't move like a fish. It drifted forward with no sweeps of its tail, no visible actions to propel it.

Her arms met it, wrapping around it tightly. Her suckers felt along the smooth, hard surface, sending information back to her brain, and then she twisted several more feet of a muscular arm around it. It hummed with activity within. But it was not alive.

She brought it back toward her, and regarded it only briefly with one eye before sliding it up underneath her body, where she could no longer see it. She forced it into her open beak.

There was a muffled pop, and a burst of bubbles.