Deeper (20 page)

"Jesus.
 
What happened to your eyes?"

"Nothing to worry about."
 
It was my turn to shrug and even feel a
little embarrassed as she came closer and looked at my eyes.

"I saw
the same thing on Terry Wallace with the last expedition."
 
She spoke softly, all the while looking at me
with the sort of intensity you normally only get from a lover.
 
I think I actually blushed.

"Who's
Terry Wallace?"

"He was a
diver.
 
A kid in the
same grade as me.
 
He was
good."
 
She looked away and shook
her head.
 
"I'd get that looked
at."

"How's
your little brother?"
 
I asked the
question just to get her off the subject of my eyes.
 
Charlie was watching the both of us and I
think maybe wondering why she was staring so hard himself.

"Jan?
 
He's doing a little better.
 
The infection is stubborn.
 
Corey's doing better, too.
 
I just got off the phone with him at the
hospital.
 
They want to keep him for a
few more days for observation, but his folks are coming up tonight to see
him."

"What
about your folks?
 
They worried about
Jan?"

"They
said it's up to me to watch him.
 
They're
off in
Europe
on a trip.
 
As long as he doesn't lose his leg, they're
okay with it."
 
I was amazed by
that.
 
My parents would have been by my
side in five minutes, regardless of any physical laws they had to break to get
there, and you can bet money I'd have been by Belle or the kids just as
fast.
 
That's just the way it's supposed
to be done, if you get my point.
 
Still,
it wasn't for me to judge.

Diana must
have read something in my face, because she got a sheepish look on hers.
 
"I know.
 
But they've been planning this for three years and I swore to them I'd
take good care of him."

"Don't
mind Joe.
 
He's just a stick in the
mud."
 
Charlie was joking, trying to
lighten the mood.
 
I chuckled along with
him.

Diana
didn't.
 
She looked at him and then at
me, and then shook her head.
 
"No.
 
He's just old-fashioned.
 
I admire
that."

"Not
old-fashioned."
 
Charlie slapped me
on the shoulder.
 
"Just
old."

"You keep
it up, Charlie.
 
I'll have you stuffed
and mounted for my fireplace."

"That thing."
 
Diana shook her head and looked in the direction of the shower, as if
she could see through the hull and study the fish man from where she was.
 
"That thing should be fed to the sharks,
not put on display."

"Can't learn as much from a pile of shark shit."
 
Charlie was still joking around.
 
I don't know if he didn't see how serious she
was, or if he didn't care.
 
Sometimes
it's hard to tell with him.

She wheeled on
him fast, pointing a finger at his chest like a knife.
 
"Don't you tell me about learning from
them,
Charlie.
 
I already know all about that!"

"Diana, what?"
 
Charlie stepped back from her finger and looked at her like she'd lost
her mind.
 
I kept my tongue and watched
what happened next instead of interfering.

"You
haven’t had one of those things touch you, Charlie.
 
You don't know shit about them."

Diana stormed
off after that, shaking her head and muttering.
 
Charlie looked at me and I used my head to say he better go after
her.
 
He nodded and went.

And I finished
cleaning up, feeling a cold dread start in my stomach.

Why would
Diana know anything about having one of those things touch her?
 
It might have been the tongue thing earlier,
but I doubted it.

She knew more
than she was saying about the fish man.
 
I new that for certain right at that moment.
 
I also suspected something else.
 
I suspected she hadn't been sick the day the
last group of divers had their accident.

I think she'd
been there with them.
 
I thought about
that a lot while I stowed the last of the equipment
.
Half
an hour later, the sun was setting and it was time to head for shore.
 
I didn't even notice at first.
 
I was still lost in Diana's reactions and
wondering what secrets she was keeping.
 
And why.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

I watched the
sunset with Belle.
 
It was a nice day for
it, and the buildings in Golden Cove looked as pretty as any I'd ever seen as
the sun's last rays faded behind them.

Davey had the
engines all nicely warmed up and Charlie raised the anchor; it was time to get
away from the water for a few hours.
 
There were a few nice restaurants in the cove, at least according to
Charlie, and I intended to find one for Belle and me to enjoy.

I was going to
have a good time, and I was going to relax.
 
That was all there was to it.
 
The
fish man was leaving my yacht and he wasn't going to be my concern anymore.
 
He would belong to the scientists, and I
would be perfectly happy to never see or think of him again.

I told Charlie
to get us back to the docks and he nodded.
 
He wasn't smiling much right then.
 
I didn't know what happened between him and Diana, and was doing my best
not to be nosey.
 
I know he wasn't
looking happy and I know she'd spent most of the last few hours sitting at the
back of the yacht, drinking coffee like it was going out of style.

Several people
tried to approach her and
she
politely, but firmly,
told them to leave her alone.
 
I barely
knew her, so I didn't even try.
 
If she
wanted or needed to talk to someone there were plenty of readily available
sources.

Can you guess
who got to talk to her?
 
If you said
Belle, you guessed correctly.
 
I don't
know how it happened — I have a suspicion it might have been Charlie's
handiwork — but whatever the case, by the time we were heading back to the
port, my wife and Diana were thick as thieves and discussing whatever it was
that had the girl so stressed out.

We'd made it
most of the way back to the cove and were doing fine when the thing inside the
bathroom started letting out enough noise to wake a volcano.
 
I was just about to step inside anyway when
the sound started.
 
The deep thrumming
noise caught my attention (and everyone else's) around the same time that the
lighthouse in the distance cast its beam in our direction.
 
I mentioned a noise I'd heard off in the
marshes a few nights earlier.
 
Well, this
was the exact same noise, only bigger.
 
I
also said the thing in there had made noises loud enough to make my ears ache,
and that was still true but I swear to you, I felt the sound in my bones when
it let loose with the latest surprise.

I didn’t stop
to think about what might have caused the noise.
 
I didn't have to think about it.
 
Nothing human could have made that sort of
racket.
 
Not in my experience,
anyway.
 
I headed for the shower
immediately.
 
I guess I wasn't alone in
my thinking because several other people got there before me.

The fish man
let out another noise, and it echoed around the small room and the people
inside it.
 
I moved in, covering my ears
with my hands, and looked at the thing where it stood.
 
It was still wrapped up, but the chest was
distorted.
 
Instead of the wrinkled flesh
I'd seen before, the skin was drawn tight and the chest had expanded to almost
three times the size it should have been.
 
All I could think of was a bullfrog in mating season, calling out for
potential lovers with its odd noises.

Think about
that.
 
Forget the part about lovers.
 
It was calling for more of its own kind.
 
I suppose I was a little overzealous, but all
I could imagine was a hundred more of the damned things climbing onto the
Isabella
and trying to free their fellow
frog man.
 
I pushed past a couple of the
kids who were looking at the thing and maybe trying to remember their own names
past the noise, and I pulled my scaling knife for the second time that day.

This time I
used the blade.
 
No, I didn't aim to kill
it.
 
Instead, I aimed to keep it
quieter.
 
One swift stroke of the blade
was all it took to cut open that bloated air bladder on the thing's neck.
 
The explosion of air felt like cold steam and
smelled as rancid as anything I've encountered in my entire life, but the end
result was exactly what I expected.
 
The
thing reared back and let out a shriek as the air bag exploded, and then it
started thrashing around, determined to get free or get away from me.
 
I backed away as fast as I could; the
violence and the noise made me feel very claustrophobic in the small bathroom.

Professor Ward
and Jacob Parsons came into the room right around the same time, and Ward took
one look at the thing where it was thrashing in the corner of the shower, took
one look at me, and then took a swing.

I wasn't ready
for it by any stretch of the imagination and his fist caught me perfectly on
the side of my jaw.
 
The knife went one
way and I stumbled right into the shower stall, slipping on the slick tiles and
landing on my ass not two feet away from the screaming fish man.

I was hurt and
pissed.

The Deep One
was feeling the same way, only the object of all its anger was yours truly.

Everyone was
talking at once.
 
Parsons was screaming
for Ward to back off.
 
I was screaming at
the sea monster looming over me to do the exact same thing.
 
Ward was hollering about me being an
unthinking animal, and the fish man was screaming for my blood.

I knew it was
strong, had guessed it was fairly dangerous in a close-up fight, but never once
expected it to shred the net that had been holding it at bay.
 
Both of the clawed hands hooked into the
netting and it let out a roar that sprayed me with warm blood and cold spit as
it tore through the nylon bindings.

I pushed away
from the thing, my feet sliding across the damp tiles, and sought my
knife.
 
It was somewhere beyond the small
army of legs in my way.

One of those
legs came up and kicked me across the side of my face.
 
I recognized the loafer attached to the
offending foot.
 
It belonged to the
professor.

Much as I'd
love to fill you in on the exciting story of how I got up, fought off the
monster, and kicked Ward's ass all the way to the west
coast,
that
just didn't happen.

Instead, I
fell back to the ground and felt my skull knock against the tiles again.
 
I wanted to get up.
 
I really did.
 
But my body refused to listen to any of my desperate pleas.

Ward was
aiming for me again, when Jacob grabbed hi shoulder and spun him around.
 
From my perspective they looked like
giants.
 
Ward cocked back his arm, and I
thought for sure he would hit Jacob, but at the last second he seemed to come
out of it.

Both of them
looked at me and then past me as the scaly bastard behind me finished ripping
free from its net.
 
I heard it moving and
knew I was a dead man.
 
Hell, I could see
its shadow suddenly covering my body, and closed my eyes, praying as hard as I
ever have for a few more minutes of life.
 
Long enough for me to tell Belle how much I loved her and maybe just
long enough to rip out Ward's throat with my own teeth.

"MOVE!
"
I heard Charlie before I saw him knocking Ward and
Jacob aside.
 
He came on like a freight
train and launched himself over me, his feet barely missing my prone form as he
rammed into the thing that was about to kill me.

Charlie must
have hit it a fearsome blow.
 
All I can
say for sure is that his shadow replaced the fish man's and I didn't end up
dead right then and there.
 
Instead, I
heard the monster let out another croak of protest and then heard the sound of
meat hitting meat again and again.