Deeper
By James A. Moore

Outside the cabin the winds were picking up and the storm was blowing harder. Fat raindrops fell from the sky and killed themselves on the deck, leaving everything wet and slippery as all hell. If it got too much worse, I’d call the day finished when the divers came up for replacement tanks.

I thought I saw something in the water, a gray movement that vanished as soon as I saw it. I looked at the water a lot more intently after that, and while I couldn’t be sure with the size of the waves, I thought I might have seen something.

“Okay, Jacob. Call me paranoid, but I think there’s something out in the water.”

He stood up and moved my way, never hesitating. I made room for him at the window and we both spent some time looking for any signs of life out in the water, but to no avail.

After a few minutes, we gave up. Or rather, Jacob did. I chose to go outside and risk the nasty weather for a better look. I’ve never been one to give up easily if I think I saw something and I was almost sure that I had seen a shape moving along the tops of the waves.

I got myself dressed in a slicker and a hat, feeling ridiculously like one of those little wooden sailors you could find in damn near any port town, and walked out onto the deck, careful to keep my footing on the slick surface.

Maybe I was being paranoid, I don’t really know, but I kept seeing that fish man in my mind’s eye and it wouldn’t leave me alone. There were four people other than me on the Isabella, and I didn’t want to take any chances with their health.

The sea was churning up a lot of waves and several that were larger than usual were bouncing around the edges of the reef and rocking the yacht a little. A smaller vessel might have been in trouble, but so far there weren't any waves big enough to make me sweat. I stared out at the water, looking nowhere and trying to catch that motion in the water again. The thing about watching the waves is once you’re actually looking at them, they seem to hide whatever secrets they have. You only get lucky enough to catch the oddities from the corner of the eye. Or at least it almost always works that way for me.

I was so busy looking at nothing that I almost missed the gray thing the next time it showed up. It bobbed in the water for a second and then ducked down behind a wave that swelled and grew, like a man drawing in a deep breath. This one was going to hit the Isabella hard, I could tell by the way it seemed to hesitate for a moment even as it grew larger. It wasn't going to be big enough to wash everything off the deck, but it was probably going to cover me with water up to my knees.

I realized that just in time to know it was too late to get away. I backed up as fast as I could, but some things can’t be escaped very easily.

The water hit the side of the Isabella and rose up in a swell, spilling over the guardrail and sloshing forward with enough force to shove me into the wall and knock me off my feet at the same time. I tasted salt water and felt the cold as it sank through my clothes and bit into my flesh. I also got a mouthful of the damned ocean that tried to force its way into my lungs and while I managed to cough it out, it was the sort of thing that took all of my energy. So I barely had any fight left as I grabbed for anything I could use as purchase, because as the water pulled back away from the Isabella, it tried to take me with it.

I think I would have wound up in the drink but, lucky me, I managed to hit one of the railing posts and it slid up the inside of my leg and landed firmly in my crotch. Ever been kicked in the testicles? This was worse. I wasn't capable of moving after that. Instead I spent a couple of minutes making sure everything was where it was supposed to be and then I carefully pulled myself away from edge of the yacht and crawled up against the cabin wall.

“Joe.” The voice was soft and cold, like the sound of the waves slapping against the reef and I turned to the source without thinking, without wondering who I knew that sounded like that.

And when I saw him, I screamed. Was there ever any doubt in my mind that Bill was dead? Maybe, but it was removed the second I saw him hanging on the guard rail, his face turned toward mine. He was still wearing his jacket, the battered old thing he always wore when it was cold. It was waterlogged and hung from his body heavily. He was barefoot, and aside from his coat the only thing he sported by way of clothes was a pair of dark gray sweats I knew he slept in when he had to work on the yacht.

Billy pulled himself up higher on the railing, his face sagged a bit, but he managed the feat. For all the world he made me think of a bloated spider hanging in a web and I think I tried to scream, but all that came out was a whimper. Everything about him was unsettling. He was dead, I had no reason to believe otherwise. I could see the places on his body that had been nibbled at by fish, and I could smell him as the wind shifted a bit.

“Billy?” I barely recognized my own voice. Knowing full well that he was dead, that he was dead and climbing up the side of my yacht, I still moved toward him instinctively. Some part of my brain decided that dead or not he had to get away from the railing and I listened to that part. My hands caught hold of his jacket and I started pulling him toward me.

His flesh peeled back under the fabric. I felt it happen and I let him go, staggering back with a scream trying to get past my clenched teeth. Billy fell forward and landed with a wet sound on the deck. He stayed there for a few seconds, a lifeless, broken form, and then he looked at me again, his eyes staring not at me, but through me.

“Joe. Listen. They’re going to come for you and everyone on the boat. Be smart. Take Belle and get out of here.”

I heard the words, but I shouldn’t have been able to. He opened his mouth to talk and the water poured out in a nearly steady stream.

“Billy what happened to you?” I was shaking my head back and forth, and my mind felt frozen in molasses. I know I was in shock, but knowing something doesn’t mean you can override it.

“That doesn’t matter, Joe. Listen to me. They like their secrecy. They haven’t forgotten what happened the last time people found out about them, and they will stop anyone from finding out what they’re doing. You have to leave here. You have to go away and stay away before they come.” He spoke with urgency and I listened, finding it easier now that he wasn't talking through the water coming from his mouth.

“Billy, please!” I was starting the think right again, but it was hard to get past the dead man talking to me. My mind accepted the fish man just fine, but seeing a kid I’d worked with since he was sixteen crawl out of his watery grave was pushing too damned far.

Billy stood all the way up and staggered back against the railing as another wave hit the Isabella. He was walking, but he didn’t seem to have a lot of strength in his limbs and coordination was a pipe dream.

“Shut the fuck up, Joe. Listen to me. Get out of Golden Cove and don’t come back. Stay away from this place. It’s gone bad and it won’t get any better. They are unforgiving, Joe. They-”

The wave that hit this time was big enough to send me back against the wall and knock me down, but when it hit Billy it threw him down and dragged him back into the ocean with it. Whatever he was trying to tell me was lost with the water.

I moved back to the railing, still stuck with a mind that didn’t want to work right. I think I went over there to try to rescue him. I think I planned on getting him back on board and somehow making him all better. All I know for sure is that I went over there and I reached for his flailing arm as it moved with the bucking waves.

He pulled his hand away before I could touch it. Billy looked at me with dead eyes and I think he even shook his head, but the water he was sinking under could have caused that.

I think I would have gone after him. I know it was in my mind to dive in there and grab him and haul him back to safety; I know it was, because I was climbing over the railing when I saw them.

They came from below, dark shapes, with large, almost luminous eyes. I could barely see them save as silhouettes at first, but they came closer at the sort of speeds I thought were reserved for torpedoes.

The waters off the starboard side seethed and the waves fell apart from inside as the things rose up and grabbed Billy. He didn’t struggle, but went with them, covered by their webbed, clawed hands and then overwhelmed by their bodies.

Three of the things rose out of the waters and looked at me. Not a one of them was quite the same as the others. Each had certain similarities to Ward’s pet fish man, the same rows of teeth, the same basic shape, but the faces were as different from each other as human faces could be and one of them, I swear to you, one of them had tentacles growing from the area under its eyes.

They were only there for a second, maybe two, but I studied them that entire time and I know they studied me in return.

A moment later they dropped down into the water and sank like stones.

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