Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

The call went to voice mail. She hung up and tried again. This time, after several rings, Nils answered.

“It’s Lea. I need to see it.”

“Lea? It’s—what time is it?”

“I don’t know. Late, I guess. Can you send me the footage?”

“Jesus. Are you alright?”

“I’m just not tired, that’s all. Got back this afternoon.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. How are you? I thought they were going to keep you in longer.”

“It was only concussion, and I couldn’t bear it any longer. It was so cold. Hospitals are never cold.” Lea shuddered at the thought of her bare feet against the cold, tiled floor of the ward at Queen Ingrid’s Hospital.

A pause. “Have you spoken to anyone?”

“I’m not a talker. You?”

“Yeah. I mean, of course. My wife, kids, my two best friends. I spoke to Carl on the phone, too, as soon as I got home. Two days too late to be anywhere near the first to offer commiserations, of course, but—” Abruptly, the phone line hummed with static. It took a few seconds for Lea to realise that Nils was sobbing. “Fuck. Lea. Carl was—I don’t know. He refused to blame me. Said I’ll be welcome at her funeral. But… Reeta was part of my team. She was my responsibility. If it wasn’t my fault, then I don’t know who. And then there was almost you, too.”

“Almost.” Lea tested the word ‘blame’ in her mind, holding it up against herself and her own actions. “But I’m okay. I am.”

“I’m glad,” Nils said, sniffing. “I’m so glad. If you ever need anything, Lea…”

“I just need you to send me the footage.”

The jeep skidded to a halt at the coast. Lea leapt out, jogging to the shore, scanning for corpses. Terence ran at her side, barely able to contain his glee at the prospect of discovering a bear or seal, evidence of one of Eqalussuaq’s rare forays above the surface. During the jeep journey, Nils had pulled up Google image results of seals found with rips that corkscrewed around their bodies. As she had glanced at the photos, Lea’s only thought had been to wonder what the attack must have sounded like.

They found nothing but the waiting boat. Its three crew members took Nils aside to speak to him, before allowing any of the production team on board. Even then, they remained far quieter than usual.

For three hours, the boat bobbed in the waters at the foot of the Jakobshavn glacier. After the first hour, Lea’s eyes grew tired of staring at the roiling waters and her stomach ached from leaning over the rail. She gazed up at the glacier and imagined that she could make out its creep, pushing across the sea towards the boat.

When Reeta volunteered to go below the surface, Lea stood at her side and insisted that she should go too. She held the microphone before her like a staff, as if to demonstrate her strength. Nils protested, of course, but Lea made her case again and again. If Eqalussuaq wasn’t down there, then she could simply gather more iceberg and background recordings. And if it was, then wouldn’t it be a crime to have video footage but no sound?

Lea refreshed her inbox until the email appeared. She followed the link to the fileshare site. While she waited for it to download, she darted upstairs to fetch a blanket, then drank another glass of wine huddled within it. It was getting colder all the time.

She opened the final sound file, 14Sep16_044 , then clicked the pause button before it started.

The video finished downloading. She set it running. The video was far from broadcast quality, as it was the backup from the remote feed the rest of the team had viewed on the boat, rather than the master files. After a dizzying flurry of pixel artefacts and indigo bubbles, the image cleared a little. She saw herself, barely recognisable in her wetsuit, identifiable only by the Tippex marks on her shoulder: DISKO SUCKS.

Onscreen, she held up three fingers. Here, now, Lea copied the pose, then two fingers, then one. Then she clicked the play button on the sound file.

Suddenly, the bubbles produced by her scuba equipment were accompanied by gulping sounds through the headphones. Lea leant close to the screen, trying to judge whether sound and image matched. The underwater Lea tapped on the microphone, twice, producing dull thuds. Perfect sync.

It was as she remembered. Reeta’s camera swung smoothly around, performing a three-sixty turn to end up facing Lea again. Lea gesticulated and Reeta spun quicker, losing her balance. Lea shook her head. She hadn’t meant to suggest that she had seen anything that should be filmed, she had only meant to tell Reeta to point the camera somewhere other than towards her.

The gurgling sound increased in volume, the only clue that Lea had allowed herself to descend further. Reeta’s camera dropped, too, and the indigo screen darkened. When the bubbles lessened once again, Lea could hear the low grumbles and creaks of the icebergs above.

It was difficult to remember how long they had floated there, searching the darkness for signs of the shark. Even now, watching onscreen, Lea lost track. Her eyelids drooped. If it hadn’t been so cold, she might have slept.

A flurry of bubbles alerted her. The video artefacted again as Reeta bounced the camera around. When it stabilised, Lea could see herself once more, in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, barely visible against the blackness of the lower depths. This tiny Lea was looking up and away from Reeta’s camera.

And then there it was.

Eqalussuaq.

Lea felt a swell of disappointment. Even with its entire length visible, the shark seemed squat and small, making a horizontal stripe across the centre-left of the screen. Its tail was only a few pixels in height. She tried to judge the distance between her and it. Ten feet? Five? Both of them seemed to fidget, an effect of the camera shaking.

The shark seemed to hover before Lea, maintaining a consistent distance. The effect was as though it were tethered to her like a balloon. Onscreen, Lea stretched out her arm, pushing the microphone towards the thing. New sounds came from the headphones. Whooshes and hisses. Its fins as it adjusted its position.

Then, both Lea and the shark seemed to grow. Reeta was moving closer. Brave girl. For the first time, Lea felt a stab of guilt about what happened next.

It would be any second now.

The shark edged backwards—she hadn’t realised that at the time—before it leapt towards Lea. Her arm lifted to protect her face, producing loud gulps as the weight of the water pushed back against the microphone. Then, onscreen, Lea’s head raised to look directly at the shark as it came.

She remembered the sequence of events clearly, up to a point. Her memories filled in what the grainy footage had failed to capture.

She remembered seeing the thin threads that trailed from each of its eyes. Nils had described them during the jeep journey—parasites that itched and blinded the shark.

She remembered the moment in which the shark seemed to travel above her, rather than towards her, before its jaw dropped open.

She remembered the distinct difference between its two sets of teeth: broad and square below, thin and pointed above. An ugly phrase had repeated in her mind: seal ripping .

She remembered opening her mouth just as the shark did, releasing her grip on her scuba mouthpiece, and letting loose a storm of bubbles that almost, but not quite, obscured Eqalussuaq, and she remembered shouting at it. The recording failed to capture the words, but she spoke them aloud, again, now.