Ryan Lockwood - Below

But it was one hell of a sunset.

When his GPS indicated that they were nearing the site, Steve eased back on the throttle. He held a rubber band between his teeth as he pulled his shaggy gray hair back with both hands, gathering it into a ponytail. Having hair in his dive mask allowed water to seep in, and strands sometimes got tangled in the mask strap. Ponytail secured, he stood and turned to face his clients.

Showtime.

“Ahoy, mateys! Thar be the treasure we seek,” Steve boomed down at his passengers. Tourists loved the ridiculous pirate gimmick, especially the really young divers.

“Captain Curt, lad, help me fetch the anchor.” The boy looked at his father for approval. Steve wondered for a moment what it would have been like to have known his own father.

The boy’s father smiled. “Go ahead, son.”

Good kid , Steve thought. The youngest in the family, a boy of maybe thirteen, Curtis grinned and followed Steve to the bow. Steve had learned long ago that one key to a bigger tip was remembering the names of the kids. He had already forgotten the mother’s first name; the dad’s name might be Bill. But he was certain the kids’ names were Jennifer and Curtis. Jennifer was too old to be amused by his pirate act, but her brother was loving it.

After Steve had dropped anchor, they all headed to the stern for a pre-dive briefing.

“Aye, ladies and gents, here be a real gem of a night dive. Below us be the lair of many an eight-armed octopus. These scallywags are said to gather the treasures of the deep, and ye never know when you’ll discover a gold watch or diamond ring in thar clutches!” This was only partially a lie; Steve had found a watch at this site on a dive years ago, which surely had fallen off a careless diver. An octopus had even been next to it, curious about its glint in the beam of the scuba lights.

“Take care to watch yer own jewelry—these beasts will snatch ’em right off of you and make for their caves.” The brother and sister smiled at each other as she touched the gold chain around her neck. Steve wasn’t surprised they were more eager than scared, since their father claimed each of them already had logged over thirty dives. This was going to be their first night dive, though, so Steve wanted to be sure he built up the anticipation without frightening them.

“Also keep yer eyes out fer the other active denizens of nighttime waters. Ye may spy me mate the leopard shark, and be warned to not touch the spiny lobsters, as they may decide to stick ye!” Steve knew they would never actually get close to any of the wary lobsters.

“Is this safe? I mean, none of these animals are really a threat, right?”

Steve smiled at the children’s mother and gave her a wink. “None more dangerous than Captain Black himself. If ye stay with me, no harm will come to ye.”

After Steve finished his colorful pre-dive briefing, everyone finished suiting up and checking their air supplies, weight belts, and other scuba equipment. The sun had vanished beneath the waves and the first stars were appearing to the east.

On Steve’s instruction, the family entered the water one at a time. Steve would be the last to leave the boat. Seated on the side of his vessel, he watched them all go in until Jennifer finally fell backward and splashed tank-first into the waves. She surfaced a moment later near her family and looked back at Steve as she touched the top of her head with one hand. I’m okay. He nodded and looked back to make sure everything was secure on his vessel, then leaned back and rolled off the side of the boat.

Cold water instantly flooded his wet suit at the openings in his face mask and neckline. To him, this was the worst part of night diving off California. As he sank below the surface in the darkening water, he gritted his teeth on his regulator as he waited for the chill water against his torso to warm. By the time he bobbed back up to the surface and gathered the family off Black Bart ’s stern , he felt relatively comfortable again .

Steve faced the Jackson family on the surface to give an “okay” sign with thumb and forefinger and waited for each person to return it. Nobody could respond verbally, with masks on their faces and regulators secured in their mouths. Everyone returned his gesture; they appeared ready to go under. Steve flipped on his dive light and began to dump the air out of his BCD. As his eyes dipped below the waves and cold water closed in over his head, he caught a final glimpse of his boat.

Underwater, Steve directed his light toward the vessel. He couldn’t make out the hull just twenty feet away as the cone of light was swallowed by the gloom. He looked toward the bottom as he slowly sank, and felt the first hints of pressure on his ears.

It was very dark.

Brightness.

Rising along the small seamount from darker, deeper water, the fading illumination from above was still unpleasant, but no longer painfully bright to the eyes in the shoal. Yet now there were other, more intense lights in the distance ahead of it. The lights moved erratically, and when directed toward the animals’ powerful eyes, they caused discomfort. The squid nonetheless obeyed their urge to move upward and toward the source, in search of sustenance.

The shoal had found adequate food for several nights now. Safe from predators in the shallower waters and finding abundant prey, its members had remained in the same area, retreating to the depths at night but no longer migrating farther from their birthplace. The quarry in this environment was unfamiliar, but each aggressive attempt at new food sources had been met with success.

Still, the shoal had grown hungrier.

Slower than the nimble, younger members of the shoal, the largest females in particular had struggled to capture enough of the small local fishes to fuel their formidable bodies. Several had together devoured a smaller sibling the previous night, but it was not enough. There was not sufficient food.

Because they were growing.

Already much bigger than the mature adults in other shoals, many of the animals in this gathering nonetheless grew larger with each passing day. But they were also getting slower, hungrier—and more aggressive.

The large females near the front of the shoal did not contemplate these changes, nor plan to attack other members in their group. They simply reacted to their instinctual urges, which at the moment were not driving them to cannibalism. The urges simply pulled them toward the distant lights, followed closely by the other members of the shoal.

With the lights, they sensed something else. Running through and bouncing off the soft bodies of their brothers and sisters around them, a faint vibration coursed through the water just before the first bright light had appeared. The aggressive females had sensed this vibration recently—a distant impact on the surface as something entered the water.

Potential prey.

When they sensed several more vibrations emitted from the surface above, they turned and glided toward the origin. A thousand others followed.

As they drew closer to the lights, the large females began to make out very long, slender shapes silhouetted against the lights. The kelp, running in a series of uneven lines toward the surface, bore many leafy fronds that drifted in the ocean surge. Hesitating at first, the shoal slowly moved toward the unfamiliar underwater forest. The large, one-eyed female curiously extended a tentacle toward a waving frond attached to one of the stalks. The frond moved freely in the water, away from her touch. She eased both tentacles out, closing them around it. The soft suckers on her arms caressed its slick surface, tasting it. The kelp was living, but cold and bitter, and she quickly released it. This was not food.