Cassie Alexander - Deadshifted

There was no way for them to reach their lifeboats. Only the helicopter made it off, just in time.

Asher leaned out and paddled bodily toward a field of debris. He pulled out one official orange paddle, a lucky find, and then a piece of a deck chair. It would be useless as a paddle; it wasn’t thick on either end, and I didn’t think I could help paddle, besides. Asher saw the questioning look on my face.

“In case they make it this far,” he said, and jabbed it out the raft’s opening demonstratively.

I snorted. “Don’t pop the boat.”

Soon we’d be alone. Just me, Asher, and whatever else was dying—or coming to life—inside me.

The fleeing helicopter swooped overhead, surveying the destruction below. Lucky bastards, whoever it was inside. Asher pulled me farther inside the raft and I groaned.

“Edie, I’m so sorry—”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t blame him. Nathaniel, yes, for being crazy and evil, but not Asher, not ever him. I wouldn’t take back a moment I’d spent with him, even knowing it would all lead to this. He was the love of my life, even as I felt like it was ending. “I love you,” I said, hoping that that would say it all.

He pushed my wet hair away from my face, his hand catching in its tangles. “You don’t have to die. You’re the strongest person I know—”

Whatever he said next was drowned out by the sound of the helicopter making a second low pass. “Goddammit, they don’t have to rub it in,” Asher said.

It paused when it arrived over us again. Its attention spun us in a circle, the blades pushing the water below them back in concentric rings, and the top of the life raft shuddered with the force of the sinking air. A door opened on the helicopter’s side and a man began to lower himself.

Nathaniel. He hadn’t gone down with the Maraschino or his mercenaries. Maybe he was right, and this was his fate. The muscles of my stomach roiled again and I screamed in pain and defeat.

No matter what happened, he’d already won.

“If he can save you—” Asher said, pressing forward, waving Nathaniel down.

“No,” I gasped out.

“He has a cure—”

“No!” I shouted, letting my anger ride another wave.

The towrope Nathaniel was dangling from lowered, and he held his arms out like he was a descending god—carrying a knife.

“If you save her—” Asher began to shout out, over the whirring sound of the helicopter blades—

And then I felt something beneath us. Like in summertime pools, when your older brother tries to be stealthy and sneak up on you and push you out of your inflatable lounge chair. The bottom layer of the raft rose up and rubbed against the top layer beneath me, making the entire raft subtly rise.

My eyes widened and I looked at Asher, but he was too busy bargaining to feel it.

A tentacle snaked out of the water. Three times as large as any of the worms I’d seen, much much longer, it rose up like a cobra about to strike.

“Asher!” I shouted in warning as the tentacle lunged for Nathaniel’s ankle and pulled.

He’d been so busy plotting to hurt us that he didn’t see it until it was too late. The harness trapped him upright; he couldn’t lean down to get his knife into play. The tentacle tugged down twice, like a fish testing bait on a bob, and then yanked. The helicopter dipped, listing to its open side, and a startled man fell out, while others barely hung on.

The helicopter reeled in line, but only lowered itself without raising Nathaniel an inch. He was frantically gesturing for them to pull him up—I saw the knife glint in the sun as he dropped it, forgotten—and they were trying to do as he told them, tilting away, but the tentacle yanked again, making the helicopter jump. In the frantic tug-of-war between its panicked pilots and whatever was beneath the waves, Nathaniel lost.

His leg tore off. It dropped into the ocean and blood spattered down like rain. The helicopter, finally free, rose abruptly and started flying sideways at the same time, but not fast enough. A second tentacle rose, and then a third, grabbing Nathaniel’s remaining ankle, and then climbing higher up the towrope.

I saw whoever was inside the helicopter run away from the wench. Nathaniel zinged out like a badge on a broken reel, cut loose, dropping into the ocean. The helicopter, now free, bucked up into the sky.

But impossibly long tentacles flew out of the water to catch its running boards. The men inside leaned out to hack them away, and were in turn themselves caught, plucked out of the helicopter as though by Scylla herself, squeezed into halves and thirds, and then those pieces pulled down into the sea.

I knew just enough about physics to know that it wasn’t only a matter of strength—that whatever was below had to be more massive than what was above us in the air. It was as if we were watching an old-time woodcut, where an octopus was wrestling a ship, only being reenacted with a helicopter and some kind of demon.

The pilot must have been the only person left, shielded by his seat. He tried valiantly, weaving back and forth against the tentacles, diving down once to buy himself time, but nothing worked. Nothing would work. The Leviathan was hungry.

The helicopter hit the sea like a sack of bricks. The blades chipped against the water like it was cement and shattered, sending chunks of plastic and metal skipping out. Asher put his arm over me to protect me, and by the time he pulled back, it was done. The helicopter was down. I couldn’t even see where it’d landed.

Asher pressed a finger to his lips—as if we could hide from the monster by being very-very-quiet, Elmer Fudd–style—and I would have laughed, if another wave of cramps hadn’t hit.

There was a splashing sound from beside us, and then a loud gasp. Both of us turned to look out and saw Nathaniel there, bobbing up courtesy of his life jacket.

“No!” he yelled. Whatever was still below caught hold of him again—and dragged him back down.

I don’t know how—if I felt safe, was exhausted, or was dying slightly more slowly than I had been—but I slept as the life raft shaded us from the sun. When I woke up, it was dark, and Asher was asleep too.

Out here, with the moon at quarter strength, I could almost believe we’d done this on purpose, we’d just taken a lovely vacation out to sea. The raft rocked back and forth like a mother’s arms as the moonlight filtered in.

My stomach didn’t actively hurt anymore—it was just sore, exhausted as the rest of me. I moved slightly away from Asher so that I could see out better. No land in any direction around us. It was as if we were the only people on earth.

And the water looked inviting. I knew it’d be cold, but only for that first second of shock. After that it would welcome me, and draw me in. Who knew how deep it was out here? I could hop off this raft for a moment, dive down, and see.

I could even drink it. Drink it all in.

As though I were in a dream, I pulled my legs into myself and found purchase against the handholds that lined the raft’s sides. It was as though a god had drawn this magnificent bathtub just for me; I only had to go and lie down in it.

Without taking in a breath, or any thought of breathing ever again, I went over the side.

The water welcomed me like I thought it would. I didn’t know why I’d ever been afraid of it. I heard Asher’s panicked scream and then it cut him off for me. Everything was simpler down here, cold, quiet, wet. The water hugged me, pressed in on all sides, and held me close. My hair, ungainly and tangled above, was radiant here, floating out in the moonlight. I dropped down like a stone, and felt my ears pop, but there was still more to the deep.