Саймон Бествик - The Devil and the Deep - Horror Stories of the Sea

He wrote his long rambling letters full of memories and feelings and good wishes and everything he could think of to say to the people he cared most about in the world. Exhausted, he signed “Dad” to each and crawled into bed. In the morning he would look the letters over carefully to make sure he hadn’t said anything he shouldn’t have, and after he was done he would drop them off to be mailed at the next port.

Lee woke up sometime in the middle of the night. He was shaking. He thought at first that the ship’s horn had blown, that some disaster had occurred, but he waited there in bed and heard nothing more—no horn, no footsteps outside. He couldn’t even hear the ocean, or feel its movement.

He got up and slipped into the same clothes he’d worn that morning. He even put on his sports jacket. It was likely to be cold.

He walked out onto the empty deck. There was no one at the railing, no one in any of the deck chairs. He walked by the closed shops and stared in at the mannequins, willing them to move. The lights in the restaurants and even in the casino were out, which seemed unlikely. The casino was open all the time.

The elevator wasn’t working so he took the steps up and down. He encountered no one on any of the decks he tried. He decided he wasn’t going to get upset over this, and so he stopped looking. He could have knocked on random cabin doors, but of course he wouldn’t do that. Let them sleep—it was the least he could do.

He went back up the stairs to the top deck of the ship. There was a swimming pool, but no one was in it. It was so dark he couldn’t even tell if there was water in the pool. He heard nothing.

Someone stood at the forward observation point by the telescopes. He walked up behind her. Of course it was her. She was peering into one of the eyepieces.

He stepped closer. “What do you see?”

She turned around slowly. “I have not been home in a very long time, and I’ve never seen it from this angle. Sometimes I believe I do not miss it, but actually I miss it very much. Saudade , of course. Saudade. ”

He stepped up beside her and looked out at the ocean: boundless, dark, and moving, although he couldn’t hear the waves. But he could see no land ahead of them, or anywhere else.

“You should look through the telescope. It might satisfy your yearnings.”

He didn’t want to do that. But he rested his hand on top of the scope and gazed at her. She seemed different, but he couldn’t quite see her face, even though they were very close together. Perhaps his eyes were going bad. Perhaps even if he looked through the telescope he would be unable to see what was right in front of him.

“Perhaps you would like a kiss first,” she said, “for encouragement.”

He didn’t want to, but she came to him anyway. He closed his eyes when their lips met. She tasted of something he did not recognize. He felt his body beginning to lift, to float. Still their lips were locked together, their tongues barely touching. He could feel his neck beginning to stretch, and bend, and soon he was upside down, and floating out over and past the rail, and over the ocean.

But they were still kissing. They were still kissing. Until all his weight returned.

The wave gathers itself, grows, and waits to fall.

Ana stays close to her mother as they crowd onto the boat. Water slaps the pier. Everything smells of salt, fish, and rotting weeds. When they’re herded below deck, the smell becomes too many bodies, too much breath. Everyone talks at once. Ana’s mother obsessively checks the bag held tight against her body, the one with their paperwork and refugee visas.

Ana wants to go home. She misses her room, and her cousins, but her mama says they’re going to a better life. America is the land of opportunity. Her mama will get a new job, and Ana will go to a new school. Ana is afraid she’ll have to do the fourth grade over again even though her auntie has been teaching them English.

They’re shown to a cabin with two other families. There’s a boy, no more than three years old, who cries and clings to his father’s hand. Later, there is strange food in a room with long tables. The engines grind, and the ship chugs through the water. Everyone is nervous, excited, afraid.

After the meal, Ana returns with her mother to the cabin and they climb into one of the lower bunks. Her mother lies down with her back pressed against the wall, and Ana tucks herself against her mother. She doesn’t expect to sleep, but Ana wakes to the scream of metal. It is the sound of the world being torn apart. The deck shudders, and a klaxon blares, accompanied by a flashing red light. A crackling voice comes over the loudspeaker, but Ana can’t hear over the general panic.

Then, for a moment, everything goes still. Underneath the human chaos, there’s a noise like a song, a rising chant making her stomach feel like it’s dropping to her toes, but it also sounds like a hurricane, a storm.

The deck shudders again. The groan of metal, worse than before, and her mother pulls her toward the door.

“Mama, what is—” But her mother doesn’t hear her.

The ship lurches violently, rolls. Ana smashes into a wall that is now a floor, losing her grip on her mother’s hand. She tastes blood. Everything is black and red, black and red. The alarm wails, but the chanting threads through it, growing louder. Ana’s heart pounds, her fear turning it into a beacon to call the song, then falling to its rhythm. She wills it to slow, to change, but it refuses to obey.

So instead, she curls as small as she can. She doesn’t want the singing people to find her. She makes herself into a ball, her face covered in snot and tears, but her traitor heart keeps on screaming Here! Here! I’m here!

Once upon a time…

Ana’s eyelids are sticky, crusted closed. She can’t open them, and everything hurts.

Once… The voice falters. Stops.

Mama? Her lips shape the words, but no sound emerges. It isn’t her mother’s voice. It’s coming from inside; she hears it in the space between her ribs, and echoing in her head. Her throat is dry, her mouth swollen. Someone is crying, but it isn’t her. It’s coming from inside, too.

Panic. She tries to thrash away from the sound and waves of pain rip through her body. She chokes on a soundless scream, breath wheezing. Her skin has been peeled away, everything scraped raw. She remembers a sound like bees, buzzing and buzzing. Needles, going in and out of her skin.

Once upon a time…

The voice again. It comes in fragments, stutters. It is a cold voice, coming from very far away, but also very close, and it isn’t human.

Where is her mama? The question comes full of aching need, but Ana already knows the answer. If her mama could come for her, she would. That means she isn’t here. Ana is alone, scared, but the voice sounds frightened, too.

Once upon a time, the King Under the Waves did not sleep as he sleeps now. He ruled at the beginning of time, and he will rule at the end. He is a wave, waiting to fall, and his crown is dead men’s bones. He was ancient when the world began.

Ana doesn’t like the story, but it isn’t quite as scary as being alone. Knowing someone else is in the dark with her is comforting.

Now the King Under the Waves sleeps in his court, which is lost, but he will wake in time.

Before the King slept, his court magician brought him whispers. She said his people no longer believed in him. They thought him weak, old, tired.