Nick Cutter - The Deep

Please remember this, he thought. Please remember that you are part of the goodness of it all and that, and that, oh God oh please girl oh no oh no oh —

LB’s body was steadily sucked into the hole; she could have been on a conveyor belt, such was her unstoppable ingestion. She had calmed by then, her struggles over. She peered at him with sorrowful, weeping eyes and bit down gently on his hand, as if that might anchor her to Luke. Her grip loosened by degrees, freeing Luke’s hand again. She gave him a hopeful look, as if this might all be a terrible dream they would both wake from shortly. Luke held on to her forelegs, her paws, the tips of her nails. She pulled away from him reluctantly, a kindergartner leaving the arms of her father on the first day of class. Fearful, yet perhaps understanding that this was the way of the world. Separations were unavoidable. These things happened every day.

She was snatched from Luke’s numb grip, the upper half of her body dragging bonelessly up the wall. She gave a puppyish, exhausted bark. Her head went through last, and it went soundlessly, leaving only the faintest ripple on the hole’s surface.

LUKE GRABBED THE FLASHLIGHTand stumbled from Clayton’s lab, away from the horrible whispers coming from the hole.

His breath escaped in sharp whinnies. Oh, Jesus. Jesus. LB was gone. Worse— eaten . No. Eaten would be preferable. Chewed up and digested and gone, her suffering over. But she’d just been… taken . And whatever lay on the other side of that hole was worse than a million cramped dog crates or vicious dogcatchers or rolled-up newspaper whacks, worse than anything any dog on Earth had ever suffered.

And Luke was terrified that LB would suffer for a long, long time.

The main lab was quiet. Disembodied voices fluttered against his eardrums, the wing beat of moths. He shut his eyes and swayed unsteadily. He could feel it now. Madness hungering at the edges of his mind. Maybe it was for the best. He could just go gibberingly, shit-smearingly insane. Then he could wrap his arms around his chest and huddle in a corner, shivering and drooling, until whatever was going to happen, happened.

Luke swung the hatch to Clayton’s lab shut. The voices dimmed. He turned and immediately sensed something moving just below the flashlight’s beam. A shape bristled up the wall, seeking the light.

Mr. Hand. His old friend.

It didn’t look like anything that could once have been part of his brother. Pallid and gelatinous, sharp bones running under a horrible stretching of skin. It had sprouted additional fingers, too: it had eight now, giving it an arachnid appearance.

It walked up the wall and paused. It… stretched . A showy display, each finger lifting gracefully before settling back in place.

It looks like Thing , Luke thought with giddy, unhinged hilarity. From The Addams Family, that old TV show.

“What do you want?” he croaked at it.

Mr. Hand twitched—had it heard him? One of those long crablike fingers tapped the wall as if in deep thought.

What do I want, Luke? What do I want, indeed!

Mr. Hand hopped on the wall, playful little bobs. Each time it landed, there came this squitch from its fingertips.

One finger pointed straight up: Aha!

Mr. Hand leapt off the wall and advanced on Luke. He reached into his pocket and held up the scalpel in one trembling fist. Mr. Hand shivered —Oooh, so scaaary! —then flopped over like a dog playing dead.

One finger curled. That beckoning gesture again.

Follow me, follow me, said the spider to the fly…

Mr. Hand righted itself and skittered across the lab. Luke tracked it with the flashlight. The hand danced impishly along the floor, spinning balletically. Mr. Hand feinted left, back right, then flipped onto the wall. Where the hell was it going…?

The keypad to Westlake’s lab. A glowing square, each numeral outlined in a faint red square. Mr. Hand sprung up and landed on the keypad.

You always were the curious cat, weren’t you?

His mother’s voice in his head now, bitter as aspic.

Always sticking your nose in. Same as when you were a boy, wanting to get into your brother’s lab even though he told you no, no, no. You couldn’t take no for an answer, could you? You wanted to drink your greedy eyes full.

Mr. Hand punched a number. Punched another.

Curious, curious boy. You want to see what’s behind door number three, my son? Do you want to play the bonus round, where the scores can really change?

“No, Mom,” Luke croaked. “I don’t want to see. Don’t show me.”

Mr. Hand tapped another number, and another…

There are some secrets, Lucas dear, that really ought to stay secrets.

“I don’t want to see,” Luke said hoarsely. “Please. Don’t show me.”

Take your medicine, son. Bitter, yes, but it’s oooh-so-good for you.

Mr. Hand pushed the red button. The keypad went dark.

A hiss as the pressure valve on Westlake’s hatch let go. A sweet, corrupted smell hit Luke’s nostrils… the scent of rotting honeycomb, just maybe.

The hatch opened. Only a crack. The metallic squeal peeled back the nerve endings over every inch of Luke’s skin.

And after the squeal came the buzz.

COME-COME-COME-COME-COME-SEE-COME-SEE-COME-SEE

The whispers were louder now. Almost as loud as the maddening drone that curled through the hatch. The whispers vacillated, the singsong call of a bird.

Come-SEE! Come-SEE! Come-SEE!

The buzz fell and rose like crazed laughter at some insectoid dinner party.

Come-SEE! Come-SEE!

Luke’s feet obeyed this command. He begged them to stop but they just went stupidly on. His brain was a horrified inmate inside his body—Rapunzel trapped in a garret.

The flashlight illuminated the edge of the hatch, coated in foul syrup. The whispers mingled with the buzz, unifying in a single voice.

A bee—one of Westlake’s bees, Luke realized with druggy horror—struggled through the syrup, its wings beating weakly. It toppled from the hatch and fell to the floor, its crooked legs waving uselessly in the air.

Luke’s foot came down on the bee. It crunched agreeably under his boot. He felt the mad buzz of its wings through the sole. He laid one hand on the hatch. His fingers sunk into the desiccated syrup, crusty as old shaving foam.

Westlake’s lab was muggy, the air perfumed with that sweet reek. The only light came from a serrated ring set an indeterminate distance away: that light was coming from the hole, it could only be.

By the hole’s light Luke saw the bees—thousands; tens of thousands —surging around him on unseen currents, as if riding zephyrs that gusted through the lab.

He could sense rather than see a structure to his left. Monolithic in scope, far larger than this room should possibly contain. The hum found its center here: sonorous, rhythmic. It wasn’t a bad sound, far from it: it was natural and clean, hitting notes that softened pleasantly into his bones.

You wanted to see , said his mother. So see, Lucas. See it all.

His hand rose, and with it the beam of his flashlight.

“My Lord…”

The hive was enormous. A carbuncled mass of wax and honeycomb that rose beyond the light. The ceiling had risen against the tremendous weight of water, becoming a great domed cathedral that could scarcely contain the colony.

It was horrible and beautiful. It was not unlike a city: parts of it were rotting and sloughing off in decayed rags, while industrious drones built new spires and whorls elsewhere. Its surface was crawling with industry. The bees were huge, some the size of sewer rats. They moved with a sluggish, almost stupid lethargy.