Deeper (13 page)

Belle called
me a little after noon.
 
She was packing
her things and getting the car ready for driving up to see me.
 
I have to say, the notion of spending some
quality time doing nothing with her had a lot of appeal.
 
Sounds strange to some people I suspect, but
seeing as my wife is also my best friend, the idea was leaving a grin on my
face.

So the day was
finally starting to look a little better; I got the boys to do
a
once-over of the cabin and the yacht to make it as
presentable as possible for Belle's arrival.
 
They worked a lot faster when the college kids weren't back from diving
and this was no exception.
 
I took care
of the captain's cabin myself and even changed the sheets, which, as Charlie
would tell you, is not one of my favorite things to do.

After a half
hour of frenzied cleaning, it was back to business as usual and I went to the
far side of the yacht and started fishing.
 
I got lucky and the drizzle had stopped.
 
Judging by the recent track record, I was beginning to think Golden Cove
was one of the best kept secrets in
New England
when it came to sweet fishing spots.

Mary Parsons
came out and sat near me, taking a breather from the research, I suppose.
 
It wasn't unusual for her or Jacob to keep me
company while relaxing.

She did that
cat curl thing as she sat down and put her chin on her knees while watching my
line bob in the water.
 
I handed her the
fishing pole and she took it as I put bait on another one.
 
Unlike her husband, Mary seemed okay with the
whole idea of fishing.

"Davey
says your wife is coming out for a few days?"
 
Her tone was conversational, but I looked her
way just the same.

"Yeah.
 
I guess
she wants to see me."

"Good."
 
She nodded her head, satisfied, and then got
a small smile on her face when the line started pulling.
 
"Charlie says she's something special.
 
I want to meet Mrs. Joe."

I set down my
newly baited pole and reached over to help her when the line on her pole
shifted hard in the water.
 
She had a
fish and by the way it was moving, she had a big one.
 
Mary let out a sound like a teenaged girl at
her first boy band concert and sat up straighter in her chair as the fish on
the other end started putting up a proper fight.
 
The 400-pound test line drew tight and then
took off, heading farther out to sea, and I resisted the urge to take the
pole
away from her, instead just giving encouragement and
advice.
 
I figured if she got too tired I
could help, but otherwise whatever she had was all hers.

My father
always took the
pole
away from me when I was a kid and
I always let him, but I never liked it.
 
How could it be my catch when he was the one that reeled it in?
 
If you see my point, I always did my best not
to do that to other people.

I think we
must have spent almost an hour working on that fish.
 
I know that Jacob came out to watch and so
did Davey and Tom.
 
It wasn't anything
special to watch me fish, but this wasn't me.
 
This was Mary Parsons and she was having a blast.
 
I could see the strain in her shoulders and
neck, and I could see the sweat on her brow, but she was determined that the
fish on that line was going to join us on the yacht for dinner.

Whatever she
had on the line was getting tired and desperate and I wound up helping her, but
only long enough to let her slip into the harness that Davey got for her.
 
With a harness in place, she'd have a chance
to brace herself properly and not risk losing the pole, but just as important,
I could literally anchor her to the yacht.
 
Once she was strapped in, I did just that, too, because I don't figure
she weighed much more than a hundred and ten and I didn't really want to go in
after her if the fish she was fighting with got bitchy.

Good thing we
were prepared.
 
After almost another full
hour she finally managed to reel the thing in — with my help and even Jacob's —
and it outweighed her.
 
She'd managed to
hook a blue fin tuna and it took everyone on board to pull the thing onto the
yacht.
 
If it was less than seven feet
long from snout to tail, I'd have been surprised.

I had a lot of
fun taking pictures of Mary and Jacob next to her catch.
 
Jacob was smiling and looking a little
seasick at the same time and Mary was grinning from ear to ear and looking like
she was all of twelve next to that monster.
 
We took the photos, and then Tommy and I gutted it and cleaned the
tuna.
 
Jacob made a point of being
elsewhere for that part, but Mary watched on, fascinated by the entire process.

Once again, we
used buckets to hold the guts.
 
I don't
worry too much about shark attacks along the coast of
New
England
, but only a fool would have dumped
all
of that
chum into the water while there were divers nearby.

Tom cleaned
the deck with Davey's help and we took the catch into the refrigerator to wait
for dinnertime.
 
Or maybe just to hold
for another day.
 
I'd planned on steaks
for the dinner that night because after a while, most people don't want to look
at a fish anymore.

It was while
they were cleaning up and Mary and Jacob were chuckling about her conquest of
the seas that the diving team came back up.
 
Charlie was first, and then two boys I'd barely spoken to, along with
Diana and Professor Ward, who was already shivering violently.

Charlie
practically hauled people out of his way as they climbed, barely even taking
the time to toss his oxygen tank aside.
 
No one was talking and every face was tense.
 
I know the signs of trouble when I see them,
and I moved over as quickly as I could, calling to Davey and Tom at the same
time.

The last two
divers were still in the water when Charlie scurried down the ladder and pulled
the burden the two were carrying up onto his back.
 
The one he was carrying wasn't moving at all,
except when his head rolled to the side.

"What
happened?"

Charlie
ignored my question and started peeling away the equipment that covered the
kid's face and body.
 
The teenager looked
deathly pale, his lips almost blue.
 
I
squatted and checked his pulse.
 
It was
there, but very weak.

As the dry
suit was peeled away, the red marks were revealed.
 
Long strands of deep scarlet ran over his
torso and along the side of his neck.

"What the
hell?"

I looked at
the red, raised welts and felt my skin crawl.
 
I'd seen the same sort of marks before, back when I ran into the
man-o’-war years ago.
 
I knew them all
too well, only the marks on the boy were worse.
 
They were thicker, and there were fine lines of blood in the center of
each mark.

Charlie looked
at me, and shook his head.
 
"It
wasn't a jellyfish and it wasn't a man-o’-war, either, Joe."

I nodded my
head.
 
I'd seen jellyfish stings plenty
of times, but never one that showed up where fabric was protecting the
skin.
 
Whatever had stung him had gone
through the heavy layers of his suit like it wasn't even there.
 
"What attacked him?"

"Joe, it
was a man that did that.
 
A
man,
and he was under the water, in the caves."

I heard the
voices of several of the students murmuring agreement and that creeping flesh
feeling hit me again.

"That's
impossible."

"Hey!"
 
Diana's voice was loud and cut away the
confusion I was feeling.
 
"Worry
about that shit later!
 
Right now Corey
needs to get medical help!"

I nodded my
head.
 
"Charlie, get us turned
around and back to the cove.
 
Call for an
ambulance.
 
Diana, tell Tommy to get you
as much vinegar as he has."
 
Vinegar, for the record, stops the venom from jellyfish stings.
 
I was hoping it would work on whatever the
hell had hit the kid.

They both
moved, not bothering to question me, and I was grateful but chagrined.
 
This kid, Corey, needed medical assistance
and all I could do was think about an oversized jellyfish that almost killed me
once.

We turned back
toward Golden Cove and I did what I could for his wounds, all the while
listening to the voices of the people around me.
 
They were background noise, mostly.
 
But now and then I heard a phrase that caught
my attention.
 
Little things, like ‘no
dry suit’ and ‘he had claws.’

They were
talking about whatever it was that had attacked the kid, and they were
completely serious.
 
I looked down at my
patient and did what I could with the supplies I had on board.

And I
worried.
 
I worried a lot.
 
Mostly about what I had signed on for and
what Belle would think when she got into town.

And about
Corey, of course, who was dying in front of me, a little at a time.

9

There's a
damned big difference between trying to treat someone with an ambulance full of
supplies and trying to treat them with a few bandages and some apple cider
vinegar.
 
I looked down at Corey and
hated that there wasn't more I could do for him while the yacht cruised back
toward the docks.
 
He'd been on the
Isabella
for several days and I don't
think I'd spoken four words to him in that time.
 
Believe me, I was feeling like shit about
that; the kid was barely old enough to shave and instead of worrying about
whether or on
the could
get a date for the weekend he
was lying on the deck of my boat and turning paler by the second.
 
Despite the cold, most of the kids from the
school were hanging around and watching while I checked their friend's pulse
and respiration as best I could without any decent equipment.

The ambulance
was waiting when we got to the docks and the attendants were first rate,
checking his vitals and actually listening when I told them about his rapidly
declining health.
 
They managed to
stabilize him and then took off with Corey and Professor Ward.
 
It was out of my hands, and all I could do
was hope it turned out all right.
 
The
weather was looking even worse by the time the ambulance took off and after the
stress of the day it was decided that the expedition was done for now.
 
That was just as well, because I was
seriously considering calling it off myself.

The divers
were still showering and drying off in shifts when the rain started in earnest,
a heavy downfall that turned the air silvery gray and made enough of a racket
to convince me to stay inside the main cabin.
 
I watched the rain from inside, and saw the drops of water hit pelt the
ocean hard enough to subdue the waves.

I tried not to
think about the claims that something was in the caves, something that looked
like a human being and had put that massive a hurt on the college kid being
treated at the local hospital.

Charlie came
over and stood near me after pouring himself a serious glass of scotch.
 
I waited for him to talk.
 
He'd get around to it in his own way and I
knew the scotch was as much to make that easier as it was to make him numb.

"It
wasn't a man, Joe.
 
But it looked like
one."

"Then
what was it, Charlie?"
 
I looked at
his reflection in the glass.
 
His ghostly
double looked back with knitted eyebrows and a scowl on his face.

"I don't
know."
 
He shrugged.
 
"All I know is it came out from the
lower part of the cave and it moved like a bullet."
 
He paused to consider his words and I finally
turned to face him.
 
"Joe, the
damned thing had eyes as big as my fist and they were glowing."

"So maybe
it was a weird dry suit.
 
Maybe it was
someone with a custom-made job who was trying to freak you out."

"No
bubbles, Joe.
 
The mouth opened and
closed and not a single bubble came out when the thing was breathing."

"He could
have been wearing a re-breather.
 
Hell,
Charlie, it could have been somebody from town trying to make sure nobody stays
around whatever is down there.
 
Seems like they'd prefer that to having a good tourist
business."

"Yeah,
that sounds like a plot from a Scooby Doo cartoon.
 
We aren't looking for Ahab's hidden treasures
here."

"A man in
a full face mask with a weird getup isn't as far-fetched as a fish-eyed
monster, sport."