Ryan Lockwood - Below

Sturman and Mike exchanged a glance.

“The second column is the time. These tags record depth and water temp every two hours, which are shown in the last two columns.” Val sat quietly for a minute as she allowed the men to look over the data.

“Just looks like a bunch of numbers to me,” Sturman said.

“Let me explain.” Val pointed to a number on the monitor. “Take a look at twenty-hundred hours on day two hundred and four. That’s eight p.m., right around twilight, on the day of interest.”

“The tag was only twelve feet deep right then,” Mike said.

“Twelve meters , actually. And the water temp is in Celsius.... Scientists never use Fahrenheit. But twelve meters is less than forty feet from the surface, which is shallower than these squid normally venture. And almost all of the recorded tag depths that evening are well within the range of a fishing line. Besides, this probably wasn’t the shallowest squid in the shoal.”

“So you think those fishermen came across a school of these squid, and maybe snagged a few on their lines?” Mike smiled. “Then what? Overwhelmed by guilt from eating so much calamari, they decided to jump in and sacrifice themselves?”

Val laughed. “That’s a stretch. But these data clearly indicate that this individual squid was awfully shallow that evening, and there’s something else. This shoal has been trending toward shallower average depths each day. Take a look at this.” Val turned the laptop back toward herself and pulled up a new screen, which she showed to the men. “You can see that this shoal is moving into increasingly shallow water, probably because they’re staying so close to shore. I’ve never seen this before.”

“It looks like they’re going deeper,” Sturman said.

“Sorry. I should have reoriented the graph with the surface at the top. If you look at the Y-axis, you’ll see that the average depth is actually decreasing. The squid are getting shallower.”

Sturman tried to think of something intelligent to say. Before he could, Mike spoke. “Your graph shows that they’re still staying over a hundred meters down every day, though. Right? Isn’t that too deep for people to worry about?”

“True, but this graph only depicts average daily depth. When you consider that at midday these animals are down very deep, normally over a thousand feet, that means they must be in very shallow water at night to generate these averages. I’ve looked over most of the data, and some recordings indicate that sometimes this shoal is right at the surface.”

“I’m no scientist, but it seems to me your squid are the reason those fishermen are missing,” Mike said. “I think the real question here is what we do about these squid.”

Sturman laughed. “We? Who’s we , Mike? You and your superhero office buddies?”

Mike opened his mouth, but Val intervened. “I know it seems easy to draw conclusions here, guys, but we simply don’t have enough evidence to point the finger yet.”

“How much proof do we need?” Mike’s expression grew somber. “Hey, Doctor, I’ve got three kids, and we spend a lot of time at the beach. Do I need to worry about a school of enormous squid tearing my kids to pieces when they go swimming?”

“I wouldn’t worry about your family,” Val said. “Even on the off chance that this shoal did actually kill those people, it would be the first confirmed case— ever—of Humboldts killing anyone. This would be considered a very isolated incident. Honestly, whatever you might have heard, these animals are not a threat.”

Sturman said, “How can you be sure these things haven’t killed other people?”

“Why would I have any reason to believe they have? Surely we’d have heard about it by now if this shoal had attacked other people. These types of bizarre stories always make the news. Why? Have either of you heard about any other strange disappearances lately? Any possible shark attacks, maybe?”

“I haven’t,” Mike said. “What about you, cowboy?”

Sturman thought about Steve Black for a moment. He’d been missing for days. Nobody at The Lighthouse had seen or heard from him. “No. Nothing.”

“Well, then—”

“Wait a minute,” Sturman said. “Montoya did say some immigrant left out in the ocean got all torn up a few weeks ago by a shark or something. Said that a bunch of other illegals might have gone missing that night.”

“Really? Well, that kind of makes me wonder. But, gentlemen, for now let’s simply assume that this shoal may still be in the area, and may have been involved with the disappearance of two people… and possibly more. This is an incredible case study though, whether or not the shoal has killed anyone. The fact that they’re in such shallow water, and so far north of their original range, and still apparently surviving, is reason enough to try and track them down. The individual squid I tagged here wasn’t the only one in the shoal that was marked. If this male is still with the same shoal he was with when I tagged him last year in Baja, then two more squid in this group have tags on them that may drop off soon. I really need to locate those tags.”

“Can’t we track them using the tags?”

“Good question, Sturman.” She frowned slightly when saying his last name. “Unfortunately, these tags aren’t designed to transmit in any way. They’re a less-expensive version we use to tag a lot of squid at once. These tags simply gather data every two hours, then float to the surface when they eventually work free. In fact, the only way to retrieve one is to have someone else find the tag and call us. The way you did.”

It was silent on the boat for a moment as everyone was lost in thought.

Sturman said, “Well, if you think there’s any possibility your squid killed these people, we need to talk to Montoya.”

“Montoya?”

“Sergeant Joe Montoya, with the county sheriff’s office.”

“I’d rather wait until we have more proof. There isn’t much of a point in scaring people unless we’re convinced of the shoal’s involvement. Besides, the odds of another attack are practically nil. Unless a person goes out intentionally looking for them, at night, using bright lights…” Val smiled at Sturman.

“Which you apparently want to do.”

Val’s smile grew wider. “Yes. That’s something I was most definitely hoping we could do.”

Mike sighed. “Shit. My wife will never let me out at night.”

As they headed back in to shore, Val joined Sturman up in the flying bridge while Mike stood below them, alone in the stern, staring off into the distance. Sturman knew how much Mike liked to be out on a boat.

“Sorry about Mike. He’s a good guy, really. I wouldn’t have brought him today if I’d known he was gonna act like this… you know, flirting and all.” Sturman knew that standing down near the rumble of the engine, Mike wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation.

“Relax. He seems harmless. About what I was saying before… would you consider taking the next week or two off from your dive operation, to bring me out to study this shoal? Your boat meets my needs, and I don’t want to spend time looking for another vessel. But I’ll warn you… you’d need to be nocturnal for a while. We’d almost always have to go out at night, but all you’d really have to do is drive the boat. I’d be the one in the water… and I’d pay you well, of course.”

“Well, I could definitely use the money.”

“I’m not always bad company. And you won’t be bored.”