Ryan Lockwood - Below

The pain grew strangely distant as the burning in his lungs became more powerful. He thrashed violently, struggling to free himself as the mob closed in around him. They kept coming.

After a minute, he couldn’t fight the unrelenting urge to breathe any longer. His body commanded him to breathe. He inhaled.

When his lungs filled with seawater, a searing agony tore at his chest.

Before he lost consciousness, he felt something cold and soft worm its way into his open mouth.

“You gonna eat that?”

“Excuse me?” Val looked up from her book at the tourist sitting next to her on the plane.

“I was just wondering if you want your pretzels. If you don’t, let me know. I’m starving.”

The obese man advertised where he’d been with a ridiculous tropical shirt and sunburned face. She offered a weak smile and handed the free snack to him. Maybe it would shut him up for a minute. He’d been talking her ear off since she had sat down.

“Thanks. They never give you enough snacks anymore, right?”

Val grimaced as the enormous man tore open the snack pack and devoured the contents in two mouthfuls. She turned away and gazed across the Pacific Ocean at the horizon. From thirty thousand feet, it was amazing how flat and calm the sea looked. She closed her eyes and leaned back, trying to block out the muffled belches and shoulder bumps from her sunburned seatmate. Maybe if she pretended to sleep, he would finally leave her alone.

Valerie Martell had flown out of La Paz at 10:05 A.M., bound for Los Angeles. Over the past few days, she had performed post-dive maintenance on her research gear and moved it into storage, where it would await her return to Mexico. In two large, overstuffed duffels stowed beneath the plane, she had packed some of her most important equipment. Bringing peculiar scientific equipment onto an airplane wasn’t easy in a post-9/11 world, even when flying out of Mexico. This time, though, nobody had yanked her bags and sat her down in a small room for a two-hour interrogation.

The San Diego divemaster she had talked to over the phone, who apparently went only by his last name—she’d have to remember that—had asked if Humboldt squid might be responsible for the missing father and daughter in California. In fact, he had provided some pretty decent evidence that they were somehow involved. She had gotten online afterward and found a series of media articles, which by now had gained some more attention on sites dedicated to the bizarre.

In her head, she ticked off the clues that Humboldt squid may have actually killed those people. One: The data logger previously attached to a squid had surfaced nearby, meaning that unless someone had brought it out to sea and dropped it there, a shoal had been more or less at that location recently. Two: The survivor of the incident had claimed that he saw something glowing in the water when his brother and niece went missing. Could have been dinoflagellates, but not many animals emitted an obvious bioluminescence. Three: A story posted online had quoted the uncle as saying he thought he had seen an enormous octopus on the fishing line, although SeaMonsterCentral.com didn’t seem like a reliable source.

And she kept thinking of another, more personal, reason.

Four: The aggression she had witnessed the last time she had dived with Humboldt squid.

On the other hand, she had spent time with these animals on numerous occasions. They normally weren’t aggressive toward people, or any other large animals. They were better designed to prey on smaller squid and fish, and while a cooperating group of them was certainly strong enough to overpower a human being in the water, why would they? It just didn’t make sense.

Sitting in seat 14E on the midday flight, far from the deep, dark water of the Sea of Cortez, Val unexpectedly felt the fear she had experienced on her last dive. Tentacles latching on to her, pulling her downward. The realization that she could do nothing to prevent them from succeeding if her tether to the boat didn’t hold. She shuddered and opened her eyes. The man next to her smiled, pretzel crumbs in his whiskers and on his orange-and-red tropical shirt.

“You all right, ma’am?”

Val realized she was sweating. “Yeah.” She smiled. “I’m fine. Just a little hot.” She adjusted the overhead air vent until cool air hit her forehead.

She wondered if the press had talked to Will Sturman yet. No, just Sturman. Not simply “Will,” or even “Mr. Sturman.” Must be ex-military or something.

Whoever he was, she hoped he hadn’t gone to the media. The last thing an unfamiliar marine animal needed nowadays was a bad reputation. Sharks around the world had suffered tremendously following decades of books and movies that had painted them as ruthless killing machines. Unlike many shark species, Humboldt squid reproduced quickly and grew incredibly fast, so they weren’t at a high risk of extinction. They might even be thriving. But it wouldn’t do them any good if people began to see them as a threat. Historically, animals perceived to threaten humans or their livelihoods had a way of disappearing from the wild.

When the plane landed, she would hook up with Sturman and get on the water as soon as possible, to assess the location where the tag was found, including the water depth, temperature, and distance from shore. She also needed to download the information on the tag, to see where the squid and its shoal had traveled since being marked. The device should have logged depth and water temperature every two hours until it detached due to physical stressors or the death and dismemberment of the squid. If the shoal had been at the same location as the missing fishermen at the time the incident happened, she might be able to determine if the Humboldts had anything to do with the disappearance.

The seat belt pressed against Val’s thighs as the plane struck some turbulence. The aircraft rose and dropped erratically for several minutes, and the pilot got on the intercom with the standard warning. Mr. 14D began to dig through the seat back in front of him, and yanked out an airsickness bag.

Val would take a rough ocean to a commercial airline flight any day.

When Val called Sturman on her cell phone after landing, she learned she wasn’t going to get picked up at the airport. He didn’t offer to give her a ride, but simply told her she could get a cab. Fortunately, being the only passenger in the taxi meant she had enough room for all her gear.

As her taxi pulled into a marina near where Sturman apparently kept his boat, she saw a man in a cowboy hat and sandals lounging in a plastic chair next to the wire fence surrounding the harbor. He looked asleep. A mutt stretched out on the sunny asphalt next to him perked up as the cab neared. When the cab stopped, she got out and slammed the door, but the man didn’t budge. His dog padded over to smell her.

“Will Sturman?”

He finally stirred and slid the hat up his forehead, revealing puffy eyes in a weathered face that had probably been very handsome at some point. He looked hungover.

“That’s me. You must be Dr. Martell.” He stood up and shook her hand as he studied her face. He continued to stare at her for a long time, as though he recognized her from somewhere. She felt her face flush but held his gaze.

“I just go by Val. Are you all right?”

“I’m staring. Sorry.” He shook his head and glanced away. “You just remind me of someone I once knew.”

“Can you help me unload this stuff?”

“Sure thing.”

Val couldn’t help but notice the muscles in his tanned arms as he lifted her heavy duffels out of the trunk of the cab. He had a large tattoo on each shoulder, and wore the straw cowboy hat well. It suited him somehow.