Nick Cutter - The Deep

Luke’s skull throbbed. “Jesus, then… why agree to come down here, if you disagreed with the whole purpose?”

“Because I’m fascinated, Lucas. I really just want to know how it works .”

Luke found it almost impossible to grapple with his brother’s misanthropy. It wasn’t that he was hateful, as their mother had been—you required a working emotional barometer in order to feel anything at either pole, be it love or hate. Clayton’s barometer was zeroed out. His emotional weather patterns were unvarying. No shutter-rattling storms, no radiant sunlight. Just an endless string of gray, edgeless days.

Luke had never really known Clayton. It would have been like trying to comprehend the mindscape of a meticulously disguised alien, a creature composed of sentient goo poured into an empty shell that he’d called his brother.

“If you don’t give a shit,” Luke said, “then why the fuck didn’t they send down someone who does?”

“Because none of those people can do what I can do.”

“You fuck . You miserable fucking specimen of humanity.”

Clayton’s expression suggested he took this as a compliment. It was perfectly acceptable to be a miserable representative of a species you cared nothing for.

Drrrrrrithhlippppp!

“What is that, Clay?” Luke said coldly. “What the fuck is that noise?”

Luke shoved past his brother, adrenaline tweaked as he stalked toward the open hatch. LB was stuck tight to his heels.

THE LAB WAS BRIGHTand ordered, not a hair out of place. Positively Claytonian . Luke’s gaze fell on the cooler containing the guinea pig…

…the guinea pig, and the strange shape wrapped in durable black plastic.

Ttthhwillipp!

The sound was coming from behind the Einstein poster. Ole Albert with his tongue stuck out of his mouth. A sense of unreality washed over Luke. It was so plainly obvious, wasn’t it? How had he missed it?

Hell, on my last descent I brought a poster of Albert Einstein for your brother, he remembered Alice telling him.

“Oh, shit. I don’t… how could you… you Shawshanked us,” he said softly. “Oh, Clay. You sly dog, you.”

“You cannot move it,” Clay said, setting himself in front of Luke. “Do you understand? It’s forbidden.”

Who was he, Bluebeard with his locked room full of severed heads? What did that make Luke then—his cringing, servile wife?

Luke took a step toward Clayton; a challenging smile tweaked his lips. LB came forward, too, her eyes resting on Clay with bright menace.

“You can’t move it.” Clayton spoke carefully. “Trust me, you don’t want to.”

The buzz drifted through from the main lab, adding to the riot in Luke’s head. It was as if wasps had built a nest between his ears, stinging the insides of his skull.

“I think I ought to know,” Luke said, deathly soft. “I’m not a scientist, right? Why keep your secrets from me? Unless, I mean, you’re working on a new dog-neutering system.” A hollow laugh. “You’re not working on that, Clay. Are you?”

“Get away from me.”

“Shouldn’t I know, brother? I came all this way.”

“I never asked you to.”

“Oh, I think you did.” Luke’s throat was dry, and the words came out in a choked rasp. “I think you’ve done plenty down here without even knowing it.”

Next they were grappling with each other. They waltzed awkwardly around the lab bench, locked up like professional wrestlers—not yet committed to actual violence, just testing their strength. Luke’s fingers sunk into the bandages on his brother’s hand; his flesh had a sickening give , spongier than skin should ever be.

Luke was dismayed to discover that Clayton’s strength overmastered his own. It was that age-old truism: no matter how old two brothers got, the older brother still had the upper hand in any physical confrontation. Clay’s elbow clipped the bridge of Luke’s nose. The room exploded in cold blue fire; Luke’s synapses lit up like a pinball machine. He stuttered backward on his heels and fell, a shockwave juddering up his spine.

Clayton’s face shaped itself into an expression that did not often grace it: concern. He stepped forward, his hand instinctively outstretched.

“Luke, I’m so—”

LB sprang. Her skull rammed into Clayton’s breadbasket; the wind whoofed out of him. He tottered backward, arms held out to ward off LB’s jaws. She was harrying him now, not nipping but really biting , aiming to do some serious damage.

“LB! Heel!” Luke shouted. “ Heel! ”

The dog paid him no mind. Clayton’s hip hit the edge of the lab bench, spinning him sideways. He fell backward, arms thrown out to check his fall.

His fingertips snagged on the poster. A look of helpless panic entered his eyes.

The poster stretched—for a heart-stopping moment it appeared as if it might hold—then it ripped from its hooks and fluttered down onto Clayton’s chest.

Dear Christ , Luke thought. It’s worse than I thought. More awful than I ever could have imagined.

A HOLE.Halfway up the wall.

Except it wasn’t really a hole, was it? Whatever Westlake had seen, however he’d contextualized it, he’d been wrong.

Its surface was darker than the sea beyond the wall; it shimmered like the placid surface of a lake stirred by a breeze. Upon casual inspection, it may’ve seemed solid—it held back the water, didn’t it?—but Luke knew if he were to touch it, his fingers would pass through into… his mind couldn’t grasp what might occur next. It couldn’t even form an outline.

The (not a) hole was rung by smaller ones, the same way moons ring a planet. A few were the diameter of nickels; others were quite a bit larger.

The hole— stop calling it that , Luke . A hole is ordinary and of this world; this is something else entirely —the hole- thing followed the curve of the wall: Luke could see a heating pipe running beneath it.

The hole-thing, the rift , glittered dully around its edges. It was growing. The smaller holes appeared to be enlarging, too, nibbling into the wall.

A new sensation: fishhooks sunk into Luke’s brain, tugging insistently.

He leaned toward the hole, the pain of his nose forgotten. He felt no danger; not an imminent sense, anyway. A voice buried in his subconscious warned him not to trust that sense of calm, but… yes, he trusted the hole. Oh yes, he trusted it completely. More than he trusted the structural safety of the Trieste , in fact. He tasted blood on his tongue but this, too, was a faraway sense. The hole—

It’s not a goddamn —

But it was a hole, wasn’t it? Sure it was. What was a hole, after all, but a, a …

Doorway ?

A split in the surface of things. An absence of matter. You could fill that absence with any old thing, couldn’t you? Put a lid over it, keep everything precious hidden from sight. You could bury dangerous things in holes, too. Holes were good that way.

Holes kept secrets. Holes and standing pipes and Tickle Trunks, yes, those too. We buried bodies in holes, and the dead were the best at keeping secrets. If a hole was big enough, well, you could hide any old thing at all.

Something was coming through the hole now.

Its surface split as a wriggling tongue pushed itself out.

It’s ambrosia, Luke realized, icy splinters filching into his heart. This is how it gets inside the station. It’s how Clayton’s been collecting it.

The ambrosia slipped through the hole and dropped—