Nick Cutter - The Deep

At the park, Zach swung on the monkey bars and slid down the slide into a drift of leaves Luke had heaped at the bottom. Luke relished this time, knowing that before long Zach wouldn’t be caught dead in public with his goonybird father. Too soon, the sun began to set over the firs.

“Five more minutes, sport.”

How many times had Luke imagined that they’d left that very instant? How many times had Luke wished that he’d taken his son’s hand and ushered him home? He’d lost count. The thought never fully left his mind.

“Let’s play hide-and-seek, Daddy!”

“Okay. One game. Then we hit the road.”

Zach smiled. It was the last clean look Luke would ever have of his boy. Zach’s left canine had come out days before; his smile was lopsided with that fresh gap. Luke remembered that. He remembered every little thing.

“I’ll hide, Daddy.”

“Okay, but don’t hide too far off. It’s getting dark.”

Zach nodded obediently. “Count!”

“I’ll count to twenty, then I’m coming to get you!” Luke said. “One… two… three…”

“Count slower!” Zach’s voice was fading toward the trees. “You have to give me time to hide!”

Those were the last words his son would ever speak—the last ones to touch Luke’s ears, in any case. Whenever Luke closed his eyes he could hear them, breathless and manic, as Zach hunted for a hiding spot. A spot he’d found and never left.

“…eleven… tweeeeelve… thirteeeeeen…”

Zach’s giddy laughter carried back to Luke.

“…fourteen… fifteeeeeeen…”

Luke heard another noise, impossible to identify. A ragged zippering sound, was the closest he could get to explaining it. Nestled within that wet ripping note was another one: a resonant sucking . Suck-suck-suck , a pair of enormous lips pulling on a straw.

“…sixteenseventeeneighteennineteentwenty!”

Luke rattled off the last five numbers rapidly, adrenaline spiking in his chest. He couldn’t say why he was so suddenly petrified; he could only accept that feeling inside of him and act on it.

He rounded the corkscrew slide and scanned for a sign of his son. Nothing. Just this horrible emptiness, the wind screaming over every blade of grass.

“Zach?”

The wind snatched the name from his lips. Panic filched into Luke’s chest. Diffuse and dreamlike, wormed with self-consciousness… it was silly, so silly, to be worried. He’d spy the top of Zach’s head peeking around that boulder over there, or ducked behind that trash can. And when that happened, Luke would chuckle at his foolishness and chase his son down and heft him, squealing with delight, into his arms. They’d go home, where supper was waiting, and after dinner Zach would sit in his room contentedly, assembling a jigsaw puzzle he’d bought with the money the tooth fairy had left under his pillow.

That’s exactly how it would happen, Luke figured. That’s how it had to happen, because until that very moment Luke had believed the world was essentially reasonable. If you followed the rules, the world played fair with you.

Kids didn’t just disappear off the face of the earth. Not in empty public parks. Not in the time it took to count to twenty. Things like that never happened.

“You can come out now, buddy. Olly olly oxen free!”

The swings creaked in the wind. The streetlights were popping on. Why had he stayed out so late? Daylight saving time had just kicked in and he hadn’t made the mental adjustment yet. But that could happen to anyone, couldn’t it?

A possibility came to him: that his son had burrowed under a drift of leaves, covering himself so that Luke couldn’t spot him.

Next he remembered the sounds: that meaty zippering, that sucking inhale…

“Come on, sport, you win! I’m sure Mom’s got dinner ready. Spaghetti with macaroni noodles, your favorite!”

He’d reached the edge of the forest. Luke had lived in the city his whole life, treading every inch of it. He’d explored this very place for hours on end. He’d never gotten a sense of danger from it. But now, squinting into its dark tangle of branches, trees standing like gloomy sentinels… yes, it seemed very threatening indeed.

Abby had lost Zachary a year or so before at a discount store: uneven floors, bins of irregular clothing. It was only for a minute, but she said that minute had stretched into an eternity. She was certain he’d been taken. Snatched , she said. Someone had lured him away while her back was briefly turned. That was all it would take. Next Zachary was in a van. Next, a remote warehouse or a soundproof basement. When she found him several aisles over, tickling his chin with a feather duster, she nearly wept with relief before furiously scolding him to never leave her sight again.

And the same thing would happen now—Luke was still sure of it.

“Zach?” His voice rose several octaves. “Buddy, please, enough!”

A thread of pure unadulterated terror now braided into his heart. Fear mixed with a love more profound than any he’d ever felt, and mingled with dizzying guilt for letting that most precious thing slip from his view at a crucial moment.

He’s gone .

The voice in his head was black —discolored and malevolent, the voice of something conjured at a Black Mass. It spoke with calm certainty.

Your boy is gone.

Swallowed.

The possibility jolted Luke into action. He stumbled into the woods.

“Zach! Zach! Christ, Zaaaaaach! ”

How long had he wandered through the trees, screaming for his son? Far too long. He should have called the police. They would have arrived in minutes. But even as he’d hunted more and more desperately, the fear and mania mounting, he remained certain that it was all some ridiculous accident—a misunderstanding that, once rectified, would be something they’d laugh about when Zach was an adult.

Remember that time Dad thought he’d lost me in the woods, only what happened is that I’d tripped and conked my head on a tree trunk and knocked myself cold for a few minutes? Har-har-har!

Something just like that, yes, goofy and commonplace and nothing to call the police about because it was fine, really, everything was okayokayOKAY—

Luke staggered out of the woods, wild-eyed and bleeding from the brambles. His mind was a jumble of horrific images: windowless vans and fillet knives and his son’s fear-struck eyes. Only then had he dialed 911.

The police arrived within minutes; Abby arrived a short time later. Luke couldn’t bear to look his wife in the eyes.

The first twenty-four hours were the real killers. That’s what everyone will tell you. In any missing persons case, the chances of success drop drastically after a full day. The search area gets too wide; the potential locations of that person (or, it must be said, their body) become overwhelming.

At first, Luke had been confident. The police cruisers with their cherries alit, the team of tracking dogs, just about every plainclothes officer in the city tromping through that half-mile stretch of forest… How could they not find his son? His son, who’d only been out of his sight for twenty seconds—no, less .

A search-and-rescue helicopter strafed the forest with its spotlight. Luke had been in the woods by then, searching with everyone else. The helicopter roved toward the creek; maybe Zach had fallen in, borne along in the current that flowed west toward Coralville. Maybe he was lying on its banks, shivering but unhurt.

As midnight passed into the witching hours, a sense of disbelief settled over Luke. A feeling of unreality washed over him. This couldn’t be happening. It was like waking up to find out your arm was missing—you went to bed, slept well, and when you woke up, it was gone. There was no pain, no scar. Only a smooth expanse of skin over the nub and an empty space where the limb once lay. It was that kind of nightmarish inconceivability he was facing. He couldn’t cope with it. Luke could live without his arm. Both arms. Both legs. His tongue and ears and nose. He’d forfeit them all gladly just to have Zach back.