Peter Benchley - The Deep

Sanders looked at Gail. “You killed one?”

“I didn’t mean to. I had no choice. He…”

Treece said, “What’d I tell you? When you’re up against it, you do the damnedest things.”

Sanders rolled onto his stomach and stood up.

“Here,” Treece said, extending the still body to Sanders. “Take this trash and haul it aboard while I dive to fetch the gear.”

Sanders took the hose. “Is he dead?”

“I imagine. But don’t take it for granted.

Dump him on the deck and put the shotgun on him till I get back.”

“Don’t you want to start the compressor?” Gail asked.

“No, just toss me a mask. If I can’t make it on one good heave, it’s time to find another line of work.”

While Gail looked for a face mask, Sanders pulled the inert man onto the platform. He let go of the hose, bent down, and took the man’s arms.

“Don’t bother with that,” Treece said. “Just haul him up with the hose.”

“I…” Sanders knew that, practically, Treece was right: it would be much easier to pull the man aboard by the hose around his neck. But he couldn’t do it. If he knew the man was already dead, that would be one thing. If he wasn’t dead… Sanders was not ready to be his executioner.

“Don’t be so delicate,” Treece said.

“He’s as good as dead.” He took the mask from Gail, hyperventilated for a few seconds, breathed deeply one last time, and slipped below the surface.

“What did he mean by that?” Gail said.

“I don’t know. Help me with this, will you?”

Each holding one arm, they pulled the man over the transom and lay him on the deck.

“He’s heavier than he looks,” Gail said.

“Dead people are.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I read it somewhere.”

“You mean really heavier, or just heavier than they look?”

“I don’t know. Where’s the shotgun?”

“Over there.” Gail pointed. “I don’t think you’ll need it.” She looked at the still black form and shivered.

Sanders picked up the gun, sat on the gunwale, and rested the gun across his knees. “What was it like?”

He nodded toward the other boat. Sanders found that he envied Gail for having killed Slake. The thought of killing the man who lay helpless at their feet was repulsive. Unfair. But to kill a man in pure self-defense, to take up the challenge and beat the man who was trying to kill you-a fair fight.

Vengeance.

“It was horrible,” Gail said. “I didn’t know what I was doing, not till afterward.”

It was dark now; the moon was creeping over the horizon, and the stars were pale dots against the black sky. Sitting on opposite gunwales, David and Gail saw each other as faceless silhouettes.

They did not see the first faint tremors in the black rubber body on the deck, nor the opening of the eyes, nor the slight movement of fingers toward the calf of the left leg; did not hear the soft snap of the strap on the sheath around the leg or the sliding of the blade from the sheath.

The dog was the first to hear the new sounds. It whined.

Sanders looked toward the bow, and as he turned his head, the body sprang into a crouch and screamed-a high-pitched guttural yowl that sounded like a cat fight.

Sanders whirled back and leveled the gun. “Hey…”

He did not finish the command. The man leaped at him.

Sanders squeezed the trigger. Nothing. The gun wasn’t cocked. He pulled on the pump slide, leaning backward to gain one extra tenth of a second. He saw the blade swooping down at him, raised an arm in self-defense, and fell overboard. The slide snapped forward, and as Sanders hit the water, feeling a new, unspecific pain-in his arm or his side; he couldn’t tell which-his finger squeezed the trigger. The shotgun fired into the air.

The man turned to Gail-crouching, waving the knife slowly in front of him, daring her to grab for it.

He murmured low, throaty sounds, yips and growls and half-words, feinted with the knife, and, little by little, moved closer. Moonlight illuminated his face, and Gail saw his eyes—wild, fevered—and saw a trickle of drool on his chin. She wanted to talk to him, plead with him, but she was not sure the man even knew where he was or what he was doing. He yowled again.

Gail backed against the gunwale, glanced down at the water, and wondered if she should dive overboard.

No: he’d be on her in an instant. She hedged forward along the gunwale, hoping that, when the man lunged, she could dodge him in the darkness of the cockpit.

The man screamed and jumped, swinging the knife in a wide arc.

Gail ducked and threw herself to the left, hearing the sound of breaking glass: the momentum of his swing had carried the man’s hand through the pane of glass in the bulkhead. She crouched by the steering wheel.

The man turned, whispering incomprehensible curses, searching for her in the shadows. He saw her and raised the knife.

A noise behind him stopped his move. He half-turned.

Gail decided to dash for the stern. She took a step, then saw that escape was unnecessary: there was a heavy thump, the man’s eyes rolled back in his head until only two slivers of white were showing, and he fell to the deck.

Sanders stood where the man had been, a wrench in his right hand. He had hit the man with the flat side of the wrench, and it was matted with blood and hair.

Sanders said, “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Gail said. She saw that he was holding his left arm across his chest, as if in a sling. “You’re hurt.”

Sanders touched his arm. “I can’t tell, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”

They heard Treece come aboard.

“He try something?” Treece said, noticing how the body now lay on the deck.

“Yeah. I wasn’t quick enough.”

“Well, looks like you made up for it.” Treece bent over and felt for a pulse on the man’s neck.

“Iced him clean.”

“He’s dead?” Sanders said.

“I’ll say.” Treece went below.

Sanders still held the wrench. He looked at it, then at the body on the deck. A moment before, it had been a man, alive; now it was a corpse. One swing of one arm, and life had become death. Killing should not be that easy.

Sanders heard Treece say, “Where’s the shotgun?”

He looked up and saw Treece playing a flashlight over the water, searching for the other boat.

“In the water,” Sanders said. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you get a sudden attack of the mercies? They can be fatal.”

“No. I tried to shoot him, but the gun wasn’t cocked.”

“You’re lucky.” Treece handed him the flashlight, dove overboard, swam to the other boat, boarded it, walked forward, found a length of rope, and made it fast to a cleat on the bow. Then he dove off the bow, holding the free end of the rope, and towed the boat to Corsair .

He lay the dead man on the gunwale and tied the rope around his neck.

“What are you doing?” Gail asked.

Treece looked at her, but said nothing. He found a knife, slit the corpse’s belly, and before any viscera could ooze onto the deck, rolled the man overboard.

“What are you doing?”

Gail said again.

“Feedin’ him to the sharks.”

“But why?”

“A warning. Cloche is loading these animals with some fiery shit, to hop ’em up, turn ’em into kamikazes. It’s all bush, but you feed a bird like that hallucinogenics and then talk bush to him, and he’s a rightful maniac. Believes he’s serving some crazy-ass god, and when he wakes up in the morning he’ll be in Valhalla or some such. But they believe the only way you’ll get there is whole; can’t have anything missing, so being lunch is bad bush. Cloche’s people find what’s left of that fellow hanging off the bow rope, maybe they’ll think twice before pulling a stunt like this again.”