Nick Cutter - The Deep

Luke held his arms out. He wanted to touch his son again. To be Zachary’s protector, his Human Shield—he’d failed his son once at that, failed Zach and Abby both, but never again. Not in a million years. He’d die first.

My son, my son. Come back to me. Let me hold you again. I’ll protect you this time, I promise. I will never let you go. I WILL NEVER EVER EVER LET YOU GO —

Tendrils spooled out of Zachary’s mouth, each no thicker than baby’s hair. They danced toward Luke’s face, licking and sampling. They needled painlessly into his flesh, twining with the twitching tendons under his skin, hooking around his skull and tightening with the fierceness of a devoted lover.

Yes, Luke thought dimly. Together again. Together forever.

Luke could feel it inside him now: blooming outward like an oil slick, covering everything with darkness.

Luke Nelson’s final memory was this:

Zachary was five. Abby had enrolled him in peewee soccer. Zachary was the goalie. He’d let in the winning goal. They walked home afterward, Zachary in his cleats and shin pads, his white socks stained with grass.

People think it’s about winning and losing, sport, Luke told him, because he could tell his son was upset. About winning, mainly. But that’s not it. It’s about the trying. The not-giving-up . We’re all going to lose. So it’s about losing and going on, keep going on, even though you may lose again and again. You may never win , buddy, not at some things. So it’s about working as hard as you can, every day, to find your spot on the mountain. And then it’s about being okay with where you are so that you can get some enjoyment out of that, and out of the things in life that are more important than whatever place you end up on that silly old mountain, anyway.

Zachary turned his face up to his father, the underside of his chin lit by the paling sunlight. He’d nodded stoically—a gesture well in advance of his years—and kept his silence. Perhaps he’d understood that even if his father hadn’t managed to put his mind at ease, at least he’d tried. Being a father was an imperfect science, and its test subjects, that man’s sons and daughters, had to accept their father’s imperfections just as each father must eventually accept those same imperfections within himself.

Luke felt his face opening as the tendrils stripped his flesh back. He felt no fear or pain. His skin parted in a solid flap—a door swinging open.

Inside was the warmest, most inviting light Luke had ever known.

His son came inside. Luke invited him in with every ounce of love in his heart. Zachary’s hands pushed through Luke’s face, entering his skull. First one, then the other. There was so much space in there now. His house had many rooms, all splendorous.

Yes, yes, my boy my boy oh do come in…

Zachary’s head came next. Luke stared into his son’s cruelly slitted eyes. A flutter arose in his chest, a dark wingbeat… it went away. It all went away.

Luke was happy to let it go.

It felt so good to simply let… go.

I’m sorry , he thought, though to whom or for what cause he was incapable of expressing. I’m so sorry so sorry so sorry so —

Finally, Luke Nelson slipped silently inside himself to join his son. His passage made no sound at all.

Somewhere, a door swung shut.

THE CHALLENGER ASCENDED.

And within it, nothing human.

The vessel’s ascent was swift—the sea ripped away in deferential sheets in order to aid its climb, or perhaps to cast it out.

Far below, the Trieste lay in spiderlike contemplation. No light shone in its labs. Its tunnels ran empty. It waited as it had since the beginning of all things, in one guise or another. Its walls bellied against the ceaseless pressure. Perhaps the thinnest stream of water would needle in, and moments later the strange and horrible edifice would be flattened… but some places are resistant to both time and pressure. Their occupants—their true occupants—are similarly impervious to such things.

Perhaps the Trieste ’s many-splendored halls would entertain life again. A select group of good-hearted souls entrusted with the salvation of the human race. Students of rationality and science who had heard the breathless stories of those who’d gone before and smartly dismissed them. The Trieste ’s prior occupants had been weak-minded, superstitious fools.

And so they would come down in ones and twos, arriving with their hopes and goals and adamantine minds—minds they believed to be unbreakable.

And who knows? They might bring a dog or two with them.

The power would be restored. The lights would flicker down the tunnels and over the wide window in the main lab. And whatever existed there would retreat into the darkness, its natural element, until the time came to call itself once more into the light.

NIGHTTIME NOW.The Hesperus sat in isolated abandonment. Pinprick fires danced from the points of its blackened architecture.

A single figure awaited. Its body was a canvas of scars. It stared through clumsy slits it had made in its own face, its eyes peering through bulbs of scar tissue with feverish avidity. When the sea began to roil, it gibbered with excitement: the unconcealed glee of a dog at the return of its long-lost master.

The Challenger surfaced. The heavens flinched.

The hatch swung open.

Moonlight fell upon its darkest cargo.

What shambled forth was unspeakable.

MILLE GRAZIE to the people responsible for getting this book into your hands—my wonderful agent, Kirby Kim; my fantastic horror-guru editor, Ed Schlesinger; and Stephanie DeLuca and the whole publicity team at Gallery.

Beyond that, thanks to my fiancée, Colleen, for putting up with my slovenly habits and somewhat brooding demeanor on the days when the writing got dark. And to my eighteen-month-old son, Nick, for sleeping pretty well while I wrote the last few chapters of this book, giving me a much-needed energy boost (even if that run of restful sleeps didn’t persist).

Also, thanks to my folks for being nothing like Bethany and Lonnie, the two appalling parental units featured in this book. I’ve heard it said that an emotionally-scarring childhood is great fodder for fiction, but I’m thankful that I don’t have to draw inspiration from the poisoned waters of that particular well.

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