Nick Cutter - The Deep

Just let me forget. Please, for the love of God.

But the world was resistant to bargains of that nature, too.

“YOU OKAY, DOC?”

Alice’s voice snapped Luke out of these unhealthy ruminations. First his mother, now his son—the sharp blades of a tiller churned through his gray matter, dredging up blackened pulp and old bits of bone. Luke felt them there in the Trieste , both Bethany and Zachary. Not in any material way, but their shapes and voices clung tightly to him now—it had started the moment that the Challenger slipped under the sea. He was trapped with them now, under the hammering intensity of a trillion tons of water.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just… having some trouble concentrating.”

Luke was flanking Al. The dog, LB, padded behind them. They’d already stopped to collect their bags at the Challenger hatch. Then they’d rounded the gooseneck on the other side of the tunnel, heading toward the remaining hatch.

“Your brother will let us in,” Al said. To Luke’s ears, her voice held the mad certainty specific to leaders of doomed polar expeditions.

“Oh, yeah, most certainly.”

Luke glanced at the portholes along the ceiling. He caught movement across one of them. A pale shred drifting languorously along. “Al—?”

“That’s it—the ambrosia,” she said, her eyes following his pointing finger. “That’s why the portholes were built: to see where it’s concentrated.”

The ambrosia wafted to the porthole’s rim and hung there a moment before vanishing. Luke continued to stare at the ring of blackness where the foot-thick glass and polymer held back the crushing sea—he half expected something to flare across it. A disembodied face, perhaps; a suety pockmarked face glowing a sick maggot-white except for the eyelids, which were red as flayed beef. The pressure had vacuumed the eyes into their sockets—they stared from deep within those cold pits…

…but of course nothing appeared. Just the bleak emptiness of the deep. Luke wondered if this was how an astronaut felt staring through the porthole of his lunar module to catch a glimpse of space where not a single star shone: an infinite blackness, bleak and dehumanizing.

The tunnel was less cluttered on the other end. Light burned behind the hatch’s porthole. Al knocked on it. It sounded as if she was rapping her knuckles on a cast-iron cannon at a Civil War memorial. Nobody answered.

“Thick door,” she said as if this were a new fact.

“Not to sound desperate here, Al, but what are our options?”

Al stuck her tongue between her teeth, biting down. “Well, we can wait. Chances are your brother will pass down this way.”

“Tip-top plan. And how do we know Toy doesn’t have control of the whole station?” Luke said. “How can we be sure he hasn’t tied Clayton up, or worse?”

“The thought crossed my mind ever since we lost contact,” Al admitted. “Most of the areas can be self-sealed and contained—the lab, the purifiers—so my hope is that it’s Toy who’s been isolated, or he’s isolated himself. But you’re right. He may have the run of the entire joint. We have to get in there somehow.”

“You said something about triggering the lock remotely?”

“Yeah, that may be our best bet.” A shiver racked Al’s frame. “I’ll head back and see what I can do. You stay here. If I pop the lock, you hold the door.”

She squeezed past Luke—the tunnel was so cramped that Luke had to suck in his stomach to let her pass. Her footsteps receded down the tunnel, and with them went the reassuring glow of the flashlight.

Luke dropped his duffel bag and sat on the floor. The dog rested her head on his lap. He felt foolish. Ineffective. God in heaven, sitting beside a locked door in the hope it would open. A glorified bellhop.

“Goddamn it,” he said softly. “Christly Jesus goddamn hell.”

It felt good to blaspheme—goddamn fucking good . Could God even hear him down here?

You go ahead, son, he figured God might say, good sport that He was. Take my name in vain if it keeps your powder dry. People take it in vain when they stub their toe or get cut off on the freeway. I’m used to it.

“I’m closer to hell than heaven down here, anyway,” Luke said, and laughed. It freaked him out a little how hollow it sounded.

“Hello-oh-oh-oh,” he said. His words soaked into the darkness only to come back in a mocking lilt.

Oh - ho-ho-o-o-o…

He glanced down and spotted a spiral-bound notebook that had either fallen or been wedged under the grate. Curious, he lifted the grate a few inches and fished the notebook out—and nearly dropped it just as fast. The cover was slick with a dark sticky substance.

Psych Report, the cover read.

He riffled the pages. The first few were filled with neat, clinical handwriting. The overhead lights dimmed, a fluttering brownout. He slid the notebook into an empty pocket in his bag, not wanting that black gunk to touch his clothes.

The lights went out.

All of them, this time, and all at once. The light beyond the porthole glass, the dim runway lights winking in the floor.

Darkness clogged in Luke’s sockets and invaded his throat. His brain fused shut in utter panic—he couldn’t think, could barely breathe. LB sat bolt upright, her breath feathering the nape of his neck. Her hackles rose against his arm, stiff as porcupine quills.

A new noise slipped out of the darkness. Back where Al had gone.

Not footsteps. No, this was a deliberate, smooth slithering.

LB whined next to Luke’s ear. Her breath held a shaved-iron tang. The scent of pure animal fear.

What could possibly make a noise like that? Had Clay brought a snake down for his tests? Oh God, what if he’d brought a python? Could it have gotten loose?

Whush-whush-whush . Soft, silky, advancing steadily through the dark.

No , Luke remembered. Felz said there were dogs, lizards, guinea pigs, bees. No snakes .

Those footsteps raced overhead again, but this time the darkness gave them a new, knowing cadence. Luke pictured a group of stunted youths in the water outside the station. Their bodies white as candle wax, sun-starved flesh flaking from their skeletons. Their heads, projecting from their collared shirts, were flat as flounders; their mouths were enormous and studded with the same needlelike teeth he’d glimpsed on the viperfish. They would be staring through the porthole with sightless silvery eyes, not really seeing but sensing him…

Now the whush-whush was joined by another sound: a dry chittering, almost mechanical. The sound of a million tiny limbs dancing lightly along the metal floor.

It’s the old man , Luke thought wildly. The old man with the mantises on his head. Luke pictured him trudging down the tunnel, his radial-tire sandals whushing on the floor while mantises spilled off of his skull.

Then another image darkened his mind—an older memory this time, a recollection drawn down from the surface world.

Yes , said a cold voice inside his head. Oh yessss, that’s it exactly. And it’s coming for you, Lucas. Coming for you this very moment…

YEARS AGO,when his life was much better, Luke had been invited to a veterinary conference in Arizona. They had gone as a family, staying at a motel edging the desert. The first night, they settled their infant son into the Pack ’n Play, then once Zach was asleep, Luke and Abby made love stealthily. Luke slipped inside Abby and rocked gently. Afterward they slept, only to be awakened by Zach’s horrific screams.