Deeper (37 page)

That left only
twenty or so to safely land on the deck and come at us in a wave.
 
The first one I fired on took a few bullets
to the guts and fell down, but the one after that jumped when I was expecting
it to run and it cleared the distance before I knew what was happening.

It landed on
my chest and knocked me flat to the deck.
 
What had to be easily two hundred pounds of fish man slammed me to the
ground and immediately swatted the gun out of my
hand.
 
I'd have been dead right then and there, but
Buddy was watching my back and blew the damned thing into bloody pieces with a
full clip of bullets.

Let me tell
you something, and I say this with conviction.
 
I would have died ten times over if Buddy hadn't been along for the
ride.
 
I have never in my life seen
anyone outside of a
Hollywood
action movie who
could do what he could do with a firearm.
 
It was more like watching a ballet than seeing a man fighting for his
life.
 
As I lay there
trying to get over the fact that I was alive, Buddy cut down four of the Deep
Ones.
 
The one on me was so much
dead meat and bones, but at the same damned time he was saving my hide, Buddy
was firing a pistol with his left hand and punching holes in three more of the
things.

Charlie was
damned good — he mowed down three of his own — and Diana was a surprise.
 
Once she figured out the kick on the weapon
and how to control it, she tore through them, firing steadily until her clip
was emptied.
 
Diana watched Charlie as he
pushed out the spent clip and dug a full one from the small bag of extras on
the stock.
 
She mimicked him and had her
weapon reloaded only a few seconds later.
 
Neither of them would have lived through the assault either, except for
Buddy.
 
While they were reloading, he was
firing his pistol and either killing or maiming with every shot he spent.

The last three
able-bodied Deep Ones tried to make a run for it.
 
One of them was smart enough to clear the
railing.
 
The other two fried themselves
for their efforts.

It was all
over by the time I stood up, wincing because the fish man's toes had sharp
claws, too, and they'd ripped through my jacket and shirt and finally skin
before they stopped.

It was fully
dark out now, and the light of the moon wasn't shining through the clouds.
 
All I could see of the Deep Ones in the water
was what light came from the
Isabella
's
floodlights.

Yeah, that was
working fine until that bastard Ward shut them off.
 
Maybe he wasn't as ignorant of the sea as I thought
he was.
 
A second later, I saw the
Isabella
pulling smoothly away from us,
leaving the
Marianne
surrounded on
all sides by the fish demons.

Despite the
danger, I spent a moment looking at the
Isabella
instead of at the monsters all around us, and I saw Ward still standing on the
deck.
 
He was only a silhouette, but both
of the hands on the hunched over shape were clutching the right side of the
head.
 
Someone else was actually piloting
my yacht as he moved toward the distant shoreline.

All of us were
shaken — well, except maybe for Buddy — and none of us spoke as the
Isabella
moved away.
 
The Deep Ones were watching, too, and
probably not thrilled about losing their diving board.

"What are
they going to do now?"
 
That was
Charlie, who had missed the show a few nights ago when the ghost ship showed us
how it had been torn apart.

"They're
going to kill us, Charlie.
 
I fucking
told you to stay in the cove!
 
You should
have listened!"
 
My voice was just
as shaky as Diana's.
 
Like I said, I
could understand her nervousness.
 
I was
also very angry, because I didn't want him here.
 
I didn't want Diana here.
 
I fully expected to die tonight, but I didn't
want to take anyone else with me.

Meanwhile,
Buddy calmly reloaded his small arsenal of weapons, several of which hung by
the straps around his shoulders.
 
Almost calmly, really.
 
I could see the slight shake in his hands from the adrenaline rush.

"Not
really a good time to lecture me, Joe!"

"Fine.
 
I'll save
it for them."
 
I pointed out to the
now dark waters and the forms that could just be seen moving around in the
waves.
 
Unlike the
Isabella
, the
Marianne
Winston
didn't have floodlights.
 
It was my piece of shit boat for going
crabbing, for God's sake.
 
I never
expected to be using it in a battle against sea monsters.

Diana was
trying to look everywhere at once, her face set in hard lines and her eyes
rolling wildly from point to point as she studied how badly screwed we were.

She took a
step toward the railing, only because she didn't want to fry, and started
firing at anything that moved.
 
I thought
about telling her to stop but decided against it:
 
if she could hit a few more of the things
before they rallied for another attack, all the better.

The Deep Ones
took poorly to it.
 
They backed away some
more and made a lot more noises.
 
It was
really the only way we could figure out where they were.

"You
think they'll try again?"
 
Charlie
was looking at the darkness out there, and getting jittery.

"Oh,
yeah, but we have a few more surprises in store for them."

"Like
what?"

"Buddy,
you think you can get out a few of the surprises?"

Buddy stepped
back into the cabin and came out with a small canvas bag.
 
He opened it and pulled out three
avocado-sized grenades.
 
Without waiting
around to see what anyone would say, he pulled the pins on two of them and hurled
them as far as he could out into the water.
 
They let out tiny little splashes, and then a few seconds later the
water lit up to the north of us and to the west.

"Concussion grenades.
 
Only have a few, but they might make this more interesting."

They'd fallen
deeper than I expected them to before they detonated.
 
I took a few seconds for the explosion to
break the surface.
 
By then the light was
already gone.
 
The spray from the
explosions washed over the sides of the
Marianne
and soaked us, sending sparks across the hot wires.

The Deep Ones
didn't take well to the surprise.
 
While
they were all thinking about the noise, I went into the captain's deck and
found my one decent flashlight, still cursing myself for not considering the
darkness that would make it impossible for us to see.

I had just
managed to get a decent beam of light out of it when the Deep Ones attacked
again.
 
They tried to clear the guardrail
by jumping hard, but it wasn't going to happen.
 
So instead, when one of them hooked the hot wire and started bucking,
two more came out of the water and pulled down as hard as they could.
 
I don't know if they were trying to help the
one stuck up there or not, but what they managed to do instead was rip the hot
wire from its moorings and drag it down with him.
 
They got shocked to hell and back in the
process, but they managed to ruin our defense in that one spot.
 
I could see the three of them, either dead or
stunned, floating on the surface as the circuit broke.
 
That was all the invitation they needed and
the Deep Ones came flowing out of the water along the spot where the
electricity was gone.
 
One of them
grabbed the barbed wires and savaged the metal strands until they snapped, its
hands bleeding all over the place in the process.

I put a few
bullets into the damned thing, but the damage was done.
 
Even as it fell back into the water seven
more took its place.
 
When they came for
us before, they were like soldiers doing what had to be done.
 
I say that because the second wave that hit
us moved like rabid dogs.
 
They were
angry now and they wanted to rip us apart.

Buddy wasn't
angry, he was just determined.
 
He moved
in front of us and started cutting loose, firing his weapons with deadly
accuracy and blasting the fish men all around him.
 
A lot of them fell back, but just as many
fell forward, building a gathering layer of bodies that not only made a shield
for their fallen brethren, but also put a terrifying amount of weight on one
side of the boat.
 
I could feel the deck
shifting from the change in distribution.

I also felt
something else, something that really had me worried.
 
There was a vibration coming from below my
feet that had nothing to do with the waves or even the bodies hitting the deck.

"Oh, shit!
 
They're trying to come in from
below!"
 
The words were out of my
mouth and I was moving, running toward the far side of the deck as fast as I
could.
 
I almost got stupid and touched
the railing, but I wised up.
 
Diana was
right next to me and the both of us watched as the Deep Ones at the lower edge
pounded their claws into the bottom of the
Marianne
,
breaking wood and then tearing it free from the level that was normally
underwater.

"Got get that bag of grenades."
 
I spoke to Diana as we both watched, and then
I opened fire.
 
The angle was wrong; I
could see them down there, but I couldn't get a bead on any of the ones
actually doing the damage.
 
The closest I
could come was the ones moving behind them, and even then it was literally hit
or miss.
 
Several of the things let out
barks of pain and wheeled away from the rapidly growing hole in the
Marianne
.
 
More of them came closer to take their
place.
 
I emptied two clips of ammo
before Diana made it back with the bag; the tilt of the boat was getting more pronounced
and she almost had to crawl to get up the wet deck.

I risked a
look back at the opened area and felt my heart stop.
 
The fish men were falling fast but their
numbers were almost endless and Charlie and Buddy were going to run out of ammo
eventually, assuming the ship didn't sink first.

I grabbed the
bag from Diana and fished out a grenade with absolutely no idea of what I was
doing, except what I'd seen in movies.
 
The pin was tighter than I expected and for a second I thought I'd never
get it out.
 
I let out a scream of
frustration and almost broke my finger pulling, but finally it came free.

I pushed the
grip down and took aim, then dropped the bomb down toward the fish men
below.
 
It landed in the water and sank
fast.
 
I didn't wait around to see how
long it would take to detonate.
 
I didn't
want to be too close when the moment came.

Remember how I
said Buddy threw the grenades as far as he could?
 
I should have followed the example.
 
The side of the
Marianne
where Diana and I were standing went up by a good five
feet and then dropped down hard into the water.

The boat
dropped faster than we did.
 
Both of us
were catapulted forward and rolled as we landed, smashing into the cabin wall.

I heard
Diana's screams mingling with my own, through the incredible ringing that
dwarfed every noise I'd ever encountered.

Off on the far
end of the
Marianne
, Charlie and
Buddy were hanging onto the railings, caught in the barbed wire.
 
It was probably the only thing that saved
them from falling into the sea when the boat almost capsized because of my
stupidity.
 
Most of the dead fish men had
been washed off the deck and for the moment at least the
Marianne
was almost righted.

Buddy ripped
himself away from the guardrail and reached for another weapon.
 
I guess the blast had made him drop whatever
he'd had in his hands.

Charlie opened
his mouth, looking at me with a furious expression that told me whatever was
about to be said wouldn't be a pleasant thing to hear.
 
That was the expression I remember on
Charlie.
 
His anger and
pain,
defined for a moment just before one of the Deep Ones
rose out of the water and sank powerful claws into his shoulders.
 
Charlie never made a sound.
 
The thing ripped the meat from his arms and
chest and he never made a noise.
 
I guess
the pain of dying was just too big.

I was still
trying to right myself as my first mate, one of my dearest friends, got hauled
away from the side of the
Marianne
and thrown into the water.