What Lurks Beneath (35 page)

E
ric stood on the upper deck of the frigate, watching the water for any movement. Several minutes had passed since the wounded octopus had disappeared below the waves. But none of the others had surfaced. There had been no sign of them at all.

He'd been forced aboard the warship by the Marines. The one driving Clive's boat had realized the situation was hopeless when the last of his buddies had gone under, and he'd gunned the boat away from the hole, back to the frigate. On the upper deck, Eric and the two soldiers had joined a small group standing at the side railing, watching for the octopus to reemerge. The vessel had been slowly closing in since the first shots were fired from the raft, and they were only a few hundred yards away now. Eric looked over at the armored gun turret trained on the area. He wondered if even this huge cannon would be enough to kill the beast.

Someone yelled, and Eric saw why. A person's head emerged at the surface.

“Wait! Don't shoot,” he shouted.

The cannon fired. The deafening noise made Eric jump. The heavy round struck the water just past the diver. But there were no follow-up shots. The gunner had realized what he was seeing.

It was Clive. He coughed and raised an arm over his head.

Eric's ears were ringing. He grabbed the arm of the Marine next to him. “We have to rescue him!”

The soldier shoved him away. “It's too dangerous. He's on his own.”

Eric looked back at Clive. Even though the frigate was much closer to him now, the old man was still some distance away. He seemed to be dazed, or hurt. He was leaning back in the water now, floating. Where were the others?

“Goddammit! You need to save him. What's wrong with you people?”

The Marine clenched his jaw. “All right. I'll see what I can do.” He headed toward the bridge.

A minute later, Eric heard a whine next to him and looked over. It was a winch, mounted to a boom. From the side of the vessel, an ROV was being lowered into the ocean. But not to help Clive. Eric recognized the vehicle, and the payload it was carrying. They were sending in an explosive.

“Where's your captain?” Eric said to another sailor standing at the gunwale. “I need to talk to him, right now. Before they send any weapons in. There are more people down there.”

But it was too late. A moment later, the boom released the ROV and it disappeared under the surface.

Eric swore and looked at Clive. He appeared to be unconscious now, and a dark spot was clouding the water beside him. Probably blood.

Eric glanced aft at the lower deck, where just past a deserted helicopter pad the two dive boats were now both tied off to the stern. Nobody was guarding them.

He took a step back and watched for a reaction from the Marines beside him. But everybody on deck was against the railing, transfixed on Clive and the water around him. Eric took two more steps, toward a ladder running to the lower deck. Still no one noticed. He turned and ran.

He scrambled down the ladder and leapt quietly onto the metal deck, then dashed across the empty pad to Clive's boat. As he cast off the lines, he wondered if the keys were even still on it. But there was no time.

He jumped down into the open bow of the much smaller vessel, collapsing against the padded seats as he landed. He hurried to the helm. The keys were in the ignition. He heard a shout from the frigate.

He fired up the engine and slammed down the throttle.

 

 

From inside a dark side tunnel, Val and Sturman heard the muffled boom. She guessed it was probably Eric's bang stick.

They'd been looking at what was left of a metal grate now torn free from the end of the outflow pipe. At the noise, they turned around and kicked in the direction the other men had taken. But before they reached the point where they'd first split with the others, Sturman noticed a cutoff in the side of the labyrinthine tunnel. They passed into it to find themselves entering the flank of a broad, flattened passage. To their right was a mound of rock, weakly silhouetted by light from outside, and to their left—

Val stared in wonder into the den, at the multitude of grapelike clusters containing thousands of the whitish, pale, teardrop-shaped objects.

Eggs.

They were enormous for those of a cephalopod, each the size of a large pear, and strands of them had been woven by their mother into hanging braids, which concealed most of the den like the beaded curtain in an Asian restaurant. It was even more difficult to see anything past the nearest strands because the water in here was murkier, hazy with dark particles of something.

They huddled inside the small opening on the side of the cave, waiting to see if the octopus would return. As the water cleared some, Val saw the light. A dive light, still on, resting on the cavern floor.

Sturman tugged at her shoulder, and they began to move into the den. As he turned left and moved under the mucus-covered strands, searching, she headed right, toward the mouth of the cavern, and the flashlight. While he searched for the device, she would watch for its return. Warn him if it came back.

They would have to hurry. The octopus would be back soon. As Val finned closer to the motionless light, she still didn't see anyone near it. She realized why they hadn't noticed it at first. It was pointed in the other direction, its bulb up against the base of the embankment built to guard the brood.

Val stopped when she noticed something else resting on the bottom. Just past the light, sunken into the rocks.

But it was. What was left of a person. A man's arm, still connected to part of a torso.

She began to kick toward it, and hesitated. These were the remains of someone she knew. Maybe her uncle. She felt revulsion, but she moved closer. She thought she saw a ring gleaming from the hand.

She took a deep breath and directed her dive light at the curled fingers.

E
ric had almost reached Clive. The pontoon boat had covered the short distance in under a minute, but behind Eric the Marines had already reboarded the rubber Zodiac to come after him.

It didn't matter now. He might be in a lot of trouble, but once he got Clive out of the water, the Navy would bring them both back to the frigate, and Clive could receive immediate medical attention. The old man was merely bobbing on the surface, the regulator no longer in his mouth. His eyes were shut.

As Eric neared, he maneuvered the boat alongside Clive and slowed, then reversed the engines to a stop. He looked for something to snag his body with, to bring him closer to the vessel, but saw nothing. The water around Clive was clouded with blood, and the boat was already moving away from him on the waves.

Eric took a deep breath. He kicked off his shoes and tossed his glasses onto the driver's seat, then dove out over the ladder.

He surfaced only a few feet from Clive. He swam behind him, wrapped an arm around his neck, and began to tow him back toward the pontoon. Then the Zodiac appeared around it, curving toward them, the Marines onboard leaning over the front. He turned toward them. It would be easiest to slide Clive up and into the lower boat.

One of the Marines began to shout. He pointed at the water near Eric, and raised his rifle.

Eric looked down into the water. Something dark and amorphous was rising directly below him. Fast. He kicked for the raft.

The thing struck his foot.

 

 

Val felt a disturbance in the water behind her just before a cloud of ink billowed into the den, diffusing through the confined space, making it impossible to see anything. Momentarily disoriented, she couldn't tell which way was up.

She felt along the bottom, trying to move back toward the recess where she had entered with Sturman. My God, did he even know what was happening? That the octopus was already back? And how would she find him?

It didn't matter now. There was nothing she could do. She had to get out.
They
had to. She had more than herself to think about.

She moved into the swirling blackness. She wanted to turn her light off, but knew if she did she would be blind. The clouds of ink parted, just for a moment. And then it was there.

It was impossible. But it was there.

Through the dark water, the curved brownish form of the huge octopus materialized in front of her. It flattened itself against the bottom, sending a wave of sediment toward her, and then its body ballooned back to its regular form.

Its mantle alone, crisscrossed with dark veins, was a hump the size of a circus elephant. She caught glimpses of its inquisitive arms, squirming slowly through the ink-clouded water around it. Their great length was impossible to gauge as they coiled back on themselves, but some sections appeared as thick as mature oak trees where they met the immense, mottled body. She noticed that they appeared damaged, dark fluid seeping out of jagged holes in the rough flesh. The octopus had been wounded—

She felt a touch on her leg. Before she could react, it seized her, drew her toward itself. As she was pulled to it, slowly, deliberately, air bursting from her mouthpiece, she twisted and reached for the bottom. Tried to grab anything to stop herself from moving closer to it.

The arm tip coiled around her leg was drawing her toward a lighter-colored irregularity on the pulsating mantle. The fleshy protuberance was hollow, the size and shape of a fifty-five-gallon drum. A siphon. It suddenly compressed, as the behemoth body from which it protruded pressed down like a massive bellows. Spent seawater spewed from its dark opening in a geyser. Val felt more of her body encircled by the arm and knew she would not be able to free herself.

Val pictured the many smaller octopuses she had encountered. She was upside down, but was able to orient herself on the landscape of living flesh. She knew where the arm was bringing her. Toward a spot directly above the siphon, a platter-sized irregularity that stood out on the mantle, hooded by ridges of tissue.

The stream of bubbles trickling out of Val's mouth stopped when she arrived. She found herself staring back into its eye.

S
turman caught the glint of metal in his dive light. He finned over to it. It was almost exactly as Wits had described it—twin cylinders of gleaming metal, placed inside a shallow rock cleft underneath a cluster of eggs. He'd almost missed it.

He carefully lifted the heavy object out of the cleft and stood it on the bottom. He swept his light over it until he found a small control panel. He held the light up to it.

On it, a few buttons, and a clear display. A digital timer, counting down:

7:21 . . . 7:20 . . . 7:19 . . .

He examined the device further. There weren't any exposed wires, no obvious way to disarm it. There was no time. They needed to get out of here, fast. Right now.

He set the timer on his dive watch for seven minutes, and then left the device where it stood and turned to find Val. The beam of his light was met with a billowing cloud of darkness. It swirled quietly toward him, and a moment later he couldn't see anything at all.

He moved the beam all around, but he was blind.
What the hell was—

Then he knew. He'd seen this before, with squid, with octopuses, usually when they were afraid. Ink.

She was here.

 

 

The golden orb, its black pupil shrunken into a mere slit in Val's bright light, turned in its socket to regard her. Despite her fear, Val felt a momentary sense of awe. In the eye she saw intelligence. The huge creature shuddered, as if wracked with pain. She wondered why it hadn't simply killed her yet.

She felt something gently touch her abdomen and looked down. The thick arm encircling her had parted to allow the delicate tip of another tentacle to inspect her navel. Tiny whitish suckers slid along her skin, perhaps tasting, and then moved up toward her chest.

The octopus's pupil suddenly dilated. Its body flared into a bright, angry red. The arm around her began to squeeze, and she winced as the air in her lungs was forced out in a burst of bubbles. Val felt herself moving through the water, pulled down and under the hood of translucent flesh that formed a webbing between the arms.

Toward the beak.

She pushed at the arm, felt her fingers entering holes torn into the wounded and weakened flesh. She tried to retain control of her final thoughts, and remembered Mack. Hoped that those had not been his remains, that somehow the octopus had not found him first. She thought about Will, and despite her lack of religious faith wondered if somehow she would ever see him again. Somewhere.

And she felt another pain in her chest, near her heart, as she realized she would never become a mother.

Somehow she still held on to her light. Above her she could make out long, paired rows of enormous, dimpled suckers running inward, toward some center point, demarcating the bottom of each arm, and she had a sudden childhood memory of being under a travelling circus tent.

Then the tent began to collapse.

As the darkness beneath the octopus's body closed around her, Val felt a tentacle tip still moving along her flesh, searching for something, and she was grateful in some small way that this animal's suckers were smooth, not lined with serrated teeth, as in many of its squid cousins. Grateful that her death might come quickly, without terrible pain preceding it.

The groping appendage slid up her torso, and pressed against the hollow of her neck. Against something hard resting on Val's skin.

The arm tip jerked away. Val felt the coils around her burst open, releasing her as the creature recoiled from the tiny necklace. The octopus exploded off the bottom, tumbling Val in the water beneath like a rag doll. Val's head and elbows struck the rocky bottom. As she tried to regain her bearings she realized she again couldn't see. The octopus had filled the water with more ink.

But it had been moving away from her. She kicked in the opposite direction. For a moment, at least, she was free.

She passed into what she thought was the side tunnel where they had entered the den, but she didn't see Sturman. She looked back. Through the dark fog of ink, a snakelike arm was wriggling after her. She spit out her regulator in terror as she tried to pull herself backwards into the narrow space. She spun in the water and found the mouthpiece again, shoving it between her teeth as she clawed her way back into the constrictive passage. Nothing looked familiar.

She realized she was heading deeper into the caverns.

Something seized Val's fin and she kicked at it, grabbing on to the cavern wall. As she struggled to escape, she realized another beam of light was illuminating her from behind. She turned and saw Sturman behind her. He moved next to her in the narrow passage, crawling almost on top of her, then grabbed at her, trying to pull her back in the other direction. Toward the octopus.

She pushed his hands away and shook her head. He pulled harder, and she dug her nails into his flesh. He released her.

He jabbed at the watch on his wrist, and then held up three fingers. Then two. One. Then he threw his hands out forcefully. He stopped and looked at her. Held up three fingers again.

A blast? He'd found something. Mack's sonic weapon. She held up three fingers.
Three minutes?
He nodded and pantomimed an explosion once more. He grabbed at her again.

No.
They couldn't go back. It would be waiting for them. She would rather die in here. She fought him off.

He looked back over his shoulder, and glanced at his watch. He held up only two fingers. She shook her head, remembering the feel of the pulpy flesh against her skin. At last he conceded, and pushed at her while pointing the other way.

She did. She lost track of time as she led them farther away from the octopus, farther from the blast that he indicated was coming. She followed her light into the oppressive darkness, her tank clanging against the rock above them. She thought about their air. She didn't bother to check, but she knew it would run out soon. They were a long way from the surface. They might not be able to head back now.

Their only option was to keep heading down this passage, deeper into the network of tunnels. She could only hope they somehow led to some other exit. She thought about her child. Their child. She'd never told Will. At least there was that. He would never know.

The tunnel branched, and she paused to scan their options.
Hurry, Val.
One passage appeared to end almost immediately, so she went the other way. Ten yards later, she ran into a restriction. A very tight one. Maybe too tight. There was only one way to find out.

She glanced back and saw that Sturman was still behind her, partially obscured in the dense sediment they'd stirred up. But at least for the moment they were alone. She thought of the image of Breck's corpse, resting silently, hundreds of feet under the nearby island. He too had chosen to run from the octopus.

Now they were facing the same fate.

 

 

She first became aware of the object as she worked to seal off the mouth of her den. A shiny, nonthreatening thing resting on the bottom near the middle of the chamber. Something that hadn't been there before.

It was small, symmetrical. It did not move. It was silent. She sent an arm toward it, but then hesitated.

She was in great pain. Blue blood seeped into the water around her from the many wounds to her limbs, and agony seized her each time she lifted one to gather anything she could find to fully close off the entrance to further threats. None of her injuries were immediately fatal, but they were taxing her strength, her reserves of energy. And, possibly, her ability to survive long enough to protect her eggs to maturity.

After a moment, one of her arms snatched the heavy object from below several braided strands of her gathered young. She ran her suckers over it, gathering information. It tasted of metal, and somewhat like one of the beings she had recently destroyed.

She squeezed it, tried to compress it, but it did not yield. It did not protest. Did not move. It was not alive.

As she held the twin metal cylinders in a coil of flesh, she extended another supple arm tip to a long, pale strand of her eggs, and caressed them. Feeling for the life inside them. Like the inert object, she felt no movement within them. Not yet. But soon.

She moved the shiny object to the pile of debris blocking entry to her den, now almost touching the ceiling. She placed it carefully beside a crumpled metal barrel. The opening was almost completely sealed off now. She did not require egress again, though. She would not leave. Ever.

She would remain here, until the end. And with her, her brood, her young, would be safe. She would protect them. She slowly closed her great eyes. There was a faint, metallic
click
.

The powerful pressure wave glanced off the ceiling and passed through her. She recoiled from the intense burst of sound, more painful than any she had experienced before. The ceiling split and rocks rained down all around her. She tried to pull the nearest of her eggs beneath her, but it was too late.

With a final shudder, the cavern collapsed.