Ryan Lockwood - Below

“It’s time, copper. Your camera ready?”

“Already rolling.” Joe continued filming the captain while they talked. “You’re really going to vacuum up these squid after we catch them, huh?”

The captain laughed. “No way we’re getting these fuckers on board with a little suction.”

“You know I’m filming, right? They’ll be editing out cusswords. So how do you plan to get the squid on board?”

“I’ll be brailing these fucking devils, which will be interesting if they’re still alive.” He winked. “Your lady friend tells me if we keep the buggers in the net long enough, they’ll die. But whatever these here scientists want to do with the live ones, they’ll have to do it in the water. Or kill the lot before I’ll bring ’em onto the deck of my vessel.”

“What do you mean ‘brailing’?”

The captain sighed. “Not a fisherman, eh? We use a smaller net to scoop ’em out of the big net and into the hold.”

“Can you really bring the entire shoal on board?”

“We take on fifty tons of market squid on a good night. This group? No problem at all. Now quit asking so many fuckin’ questions.”

Joe paused the camera and repositioned himself to watch the skiff deployment. The smaller deckhand moved past him toward the smaller boat.

Joe said, “Good luck, pal.”

The man turned toward him and nodded.

“You’ve probably done this a thousand times though, huh?”

The deckhand merely nodded. When the swells died for a moment, he lowered himself over the side of the boat. The lightweight aluminum skiff looked unstable compared to the seiner, but the man didn’t appear concerned as Joe watched him through the camera’s viewfinder. Val stepped out of the cabin to watch the action. The deckhand pulled the cord of the sixty-horsepower outboard motor until it fired up on the fourth try. The other deckhand, a slow, Eastern European–looking fellow with a shock of brown hair and several days’ worth of whiskers, untied the skiff. He sent his smaller pal off with a laugh.

Joe felt sick again as he tried to keep the camera fixed on the tiny boat. It slowly motored away from the safety of the larger vessel, into the darkness, to capture several tons of sea monster.

“O ut past the banks and shallows, where all the jiggers meet ... you’ll find the squids a’gathered, fifty fathoms deep.

“Swimmin’ in the blackness, the rigs can barely reach… yon squids they lie a’waitin,’ fifty fathoms deep.”

Captain MacDonald spat into the water, ignoring the remnant strand of saliva that clung to his gray beard. He often sang when at sea, usually unaware that he was. It was a habit he’d formed when fishing with his father and uncles in Newfoundland, sometimes for squid. They all sang. Singing kept a man from losing his sanity.

Tomás had set off on the skiff a few minutes ago. A capable lad, and unshakeable. Better than his other deckhand, a big, strong fellow but dumb. And better than these soft researchers getting in the way and filming everything, and the son-of-bitch cop with them. He looked as green as any virgin deckhand after a night of rough seas. Served him right. MacDonald sang toward the cop’s back, and the cop turned to film him.

“First one’s hooked by Jimmy, and shouts go round the fleet… he’s gonna get some supper, from fifty fathoms deep!” MacDonald liked that part. Now how did the rest go? He took off his glasses and wiped salt and mist off the lenses onto his rough sweater.

“Ink splats in your faces! Catch squirms at your feet! Don oilskins if jigging… fifty fathoms deep.”

MacDonald stood facing the darkness around his vessel, feeling the ocean’s rhythms through the deck. She was really beginning to calm, which pleased him. Hauling in a purse net in rough seas was no fun at all. He fished a fresh wad of wintergreen-flavored tobacco out of the tin in his shirt pocket and placed the treat inside his lip.

The captain listened as the skiff motor began to hum louder. Tomás was picking up speed. He would make the half-mile loop in less than five minutes, dragging the lead end of the net, despite the darkness and rough conditions. The captain felt his heart beat faster. He hadn’t gone after larger squid since he was a younger man, and never had gathered an entire net-full. Soon he would have a mess of the flying jumbo squid in the hold. Asian markets were paying top dollar for these squid right now, and if he could haul them in with the setup he already had… as a cool night breeze on his whiskers gave him goose bumps, he remembered the end of the song his uncle had taught him:

“Good days end a’laughin.’ There’s no cause to weep… if you land a catch from fifty fathoms deep.

“But beware a slip or stumble, boy. A mistake you’re hers to keep.

“You’ll find yourself a’lyin’… fifty fathoms deep.”

Joe tried to track the skiff towing the seining net as it hurtled through the waves in a wide circle that would end back at the Centaur . He couldn’t actually make out the small boat in the darkness, especially not through the camera’s narrow viewfinder, just the single small light on its bow as it gradually progressed. He wondered how crappy this footage was going to look, especially with the accompanying audio dominated by the obnoxious captain singing loudly behind him.

“Captain, I’m glad you’re the only singer on this boat. What’s up with your deckhands, anyway? The younger one never even talks.”

“Tomás?” The captain smiled grimly. “Aye. For good reason. Missing part of his tongue.”

“What?”

“I found him living near the port in Guerrero Negro, when he was fifteen.”

“Down in Baja?”

“Aye. He was doing odd jobs for the men loading salt. Big salt mine there, you know? Anyway, his mother… let’s just say she had quite a few boyfriends working at the mines. One of ’em didn’t like the boy talking so much, and tried to cut out his tongue. Only got part of it, though. Kid’s mother did nothing.”

“Jesus. That’s terrible.”

“Now the Centaur ’s his home. Best hand I’ve ever had.”

“Your other deckhand doesn’t seem to talk, either. Surely—”

The captain chuckled as he walked away. “Naw. He’s just a big, stupid galoot with nothing to say.”

Joe smiled and turned back toward the edge of the boat. He couldn’t forget about the dynamite, but maybe he could let the captain off with just a warning.

He directed the camera toward the water below him. The waves were much smaller than they had been during the day, and he could see fairly well into the water next to the hull because of the Centaur ’s bright lighting. Were there any squid gathered underneath them now? The ocean out here was very clear, but all he could see alongside the hull were occasional smaller fish darting past in the boat’s lights or hovering in the shadow it cast. He could tell there were some larger fish hovering underneath them, but there was no way to film them because of the angle he was shooting from, and the distance above the water.

Joe looked back up at the horizon, where the skiff was now maybe five hundred feet away and probably two-thirds of the way finished with its route. As he watched the distant, oscillating light, a wave of nausea suddenly washed through his stomach. He was going to retch again. He paused the camera.

He gripped the cold metal edge of the gunwale as his abdomen tightened and he dry-heaved over the side. There was still the smell in his sinuses from his earlier sickness, which didn’t help any. As a second convulsion subsided, he opened his tear-filled eyes and for an instant thought he saw a large, pale shape moving in the water into the shadow underneath the boat. He hit the record button on the camera and leaned farther out to see if he could find what he had seen.