Nick Cutter - The Deep

“Why me?” he asked again. “You had my brother already. So why?”

“ Because ,” the tall one said, “ we had nothing to offer him in return for bearing our gift .”

“ There was nothing tying your brother to the surface. ” A look of true confusion graced the squat one’s face. “ He prefers to be with… us .”

“ There is no accounting ,” the tall one said.

“ But you .” The squat one flicked a serrate black tongue over its teeth. “ Ohhh, now you …”

“ You have loved, my child. ”

“ You have supped that weak nectar. ”

“ You have ties to the sunlit world. And you see, we too wish to see the sun again .”

“ After all, we were there for its birth, ” said the squat one. “ Your brother was the key. He was a satisfactory tool. But his use has been served. ”

“ Your use has yet begun, ” the tall one told Luke.

“I just want to go home,” Luke said. It was the simplest request he’d ever made, and he asked as a child would.

“ And you may ,” the tall one said laughingly. “ Of course, of course. We insist upon it. But with our gift. You will bear it .”

Gift?

The cliff behind the Fig Men flexed and cramped. A shrill, prolonged moan filtered out of the dark. Chillingly, it sounded like a dog’s moan.

“ Our gift ,” the tall one repeated.

“ You must take it ,” the squat one echoed. “ We have arranged it. You must accept our terms. ”

“What terms?”

The tall one grinned. “ Oh, come now .”

“ It took all of our powers to accomplish it ,” the squat one said. “ It was… draining, would be your understanding of it . We had to slumber afterward. ”

“ Such sweet slumber .”

“ Sweet, yes. And when we awoke we had company. ”

“ Such merry company .”

The long con .

It was a term Abby had described to Luke years ago, after they had watched a movie about a pair of bunko artists plying their trade across the Midwest.

There are two types of cons , she’d told him. Short and long. The short con is a confidence trick that can be pulled in minutes. Three-card monte’s your classic short con. The other one, the long con, unfolds over days or weeks, even years. It involves preparation, props, costumes, scripted lines. The long con takes time. The con men have to gain the full trust of their rubes; it’s got to be seamless, you know? A perfect facsimile of life.

How the hell do you know all this? Luke had asked her. Should I be watching my wallet around you?

Your wallet? Abby sniffed. That’s pure short con. You should watch your bank account.

These creatures had known . Luke saw that now. All along they had known.

They had seen the shape of the world to come and had bent it to their own devices. They had divined it all a lifetime ago, back when Clayton and Luke were only babes. They had watched the two of them their entire lives, doting over them like careful babysitters… no, more like pig farmers waiting with idle interest while the spring hogs were fattened for slaughter. These things had toyed with the fates of both Clayton and himself, engineering their lives to the finest calibration…

…and then, one autumn evening at a park not far from Luke’s home, they’d played their finest trick of all.

“You stole my son.”

The squat one tittered. “ Foolish child, you must always mind your belongings. Never let them out of sight. ”

In a conversational tone, Luke said: “Fuck you.”

The squat one’s face peeled back from its skull, its teeth elongating into curved rat’s teeth. Its arms undulated silkily.

“ Have you any idea what I could—”

The tall one hissed warningly. The squat one cringed.

“ Such a harsh word, stole,” the tall one said. “ We have held him. Kept him safe. And we did so knowing you would pay what you owe to reclaim that which was once yours. ”

Luke closed his eyes. Ole Zach Attack. They had taken him. Ruined his family. Ripped Luke’s life apart—they knew he would have to be utterly hopeless before he agreed to come to this watery hell in pursuit of his insufferable brother. Luke must have nothing left to live for. Well, they had seen to that. Zach had spent the last seven years with these things. Seven human years, the passage of which seemed immaterial in a place like this. More years than he had spent with his own parents. What would that do to his son—to anyone?

Luke opened his eyes. “What do you want?”

“ To be free ,” they said simply.

“You don’t deserve it,” Luke croaked, a ghastly smile spreading across his face. “You deserve to be down here. Alone.”

The Fig Men smiled back. Luke’s soul shuddered. The cliff was swelling behind them—it seemed to be curling over in its upper recesses, beyond Luke’s sight, a horrific wave preparing to break.

The Fig Men smiled bashfully, coquettishly. It’s just little ol’ us, child. What harm can we cause?

“Our gift…”

“I won’t accept it.”

The tall one said, “ Why ever not?”

Luke set his feet. “I’ll die here.”

They chuckled mordantly.

“ Oh my child, ” the squat one said, “ will you remain a stranger to yourself to the very end? ”

“ You love too much, ” the tall one said. An expression flitted across its face that could have charitably passed for sorrow. “ Your kind does so—loves heedlessly, without restraint or governance. It can lead you to grand places, surely. Places we have never seen or ever will .”

“ But love has other uses, too ,” said the squat one.

The ovoid ball those monstrous hands had left behind began to throb, its exterior issuing crackling birch-bark sounds. It bulged and heaved as whatever lay within struggled to set itself free…

A cocoon. Of course it was. Just like the one he’d once pointed out to Zach in the backyard, the one with a lunar moth crawling out of it. This cocoon was tar-black, just like the ones that had encased the Fig Men in his son’s closet…

The cocoon expanded, pulsing like a diseased heart. Its exterior shed in crackling layers as it stretched with an awful elasticity.

Something split through. Dark and bladelike. A broth of pulpy sludge issued forth. One appendage was joined by another. Two arms, two huge and spidery hands. Tearing and sawing the cocoon apart.

A bulbous head appeared. It was all black. It opened its mouth—out came the shocked cry of an infant.

Its eyes opened next. They pinned Luke in a gaze that was equal parts malevolent and loving.

“ Daddy ,” it said.

It slipped from its sheath. Its shape was incomprehensible. Its lunatic anatomy humped toward Luke, those two gnarled but powerful arms dragging the ruin of a body still slick with amniotic fluid.

Zachary. After all this time, Luke’s son had returned to him.

He fell to his knees. The Fig Men watched impassively.

“ Our gift ,” they said. “ Will you accept it? ”

His son drew nearer. His skull was swollen and hairless; veins bulged over his scalp, pulsating weakly. Luke saw elements of others he’d known in the awful contours of that face—his brother’s pursed lips, his mother’s delicate ears. His son’s mouth split into a smile. His teeth were tiny, his old milk teeth, each one trimmed to a sharp point.