Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (20 page)

Susan smiled. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be back soon.”

Susan waited for him to restart the video before climbing inside the
Altus. A narrow hatch led down to the pressure sphere at the bottom.
Susan held her breath and wiggled inside, working her way slowly down
the slender tube. Unlike the romanticized image of tiny portholes and
copper nuts and bolts, her bathyscaphe was padded with soft black
material and had a small computer panel below the two windows.

She dropped into a little chair and began tapping the keys. “Can
you hear me guys? Okay, good. Let’s get this thing launched.”

“Ready, doctor. The crane will lower you now.” Ed’s
voice boomed across the internal speakers, clear throughout the
craft.

Susan held the edge of the computer panel as the bathyscaphe
shuddered and swung on the end of the crane. For a moment, she felt
weightless, until with a jolt, the Altus hit the waves. Blue water
lapped at the windows, and then the craft was released from the crane
and began to sink.

Susan activated the controls, using the propulsion to steady her
drop. “Thanks, guys, am now deployed. I will begin the dive any
second.”

Susan gunned the engine, monitoring the huge floats above her to
ensure that she kept some buoyancy for the return journey.

“Okay guys, the Altus has started dropping at a rate of around
two meters a second. Pressure holding steady. The dive computer is
adjusting the oxygen mix to specification.”

Susan watched light blue fade to a dark, royal color. “Dropped
to 495 meters and still descending. Light’s nearly gone; I can
see almost nothing outside. Pure darkness below.”

“The picture’s clear, Doctor, but it’s quite dark,
nothing to, oh, yes … ” Ed’s voice drifted to
silence.

Susan pressed her hand against the glass like a child at first snow.
For all her earlier worries, truthfully, this was the part of her
life she loved best.

“What
is
that?” Richard’s voice burst out.
Susan turned to the second window as she heard Ed’s voice
crackled through the speakers.

“Vampire squid from hell. Ugly little critter isn’t he,
Mister Mason? Squishy black jelly and glowing red eyes.”

Susan followed the squid with the cameras, catching as it flashed
different light patterns across its body.

“Look at him,” she spoke half to her husband and half to
the automated cameras. “We know so little about these
cephalopods. They never survive when taken into captivity. I’m
training the cameras upwards and turning the lights off a second.
What do you see, Richard?”

“Hard to see anything from below.”

“Because it has as a bioluminescent underside to match the
overhead light, blending in completely. Quite beautiful. Nature knows
what an animal needs to survive in its habitat.”

Susan took a moment to check the dive computer, monitoring her oxygen
mix. Still green.

“Over one thousand meters now. See, Richard, watch the
spotlights on the outside of the sub.”

Susan reached for a set of joysticks, manipulating them without
taking her eyes off the windows. An array of spotlights cut through
the darkness highlighting the fish swimming beside the sub.

“Anglerfish! Even I know what he’s called,” Richard
said.

“Using his bioluminescent light to lure prey into his mouth,”
Susan said.

The beams illuminated the tiny shoals of fish as they darted around
the bathyscaphe. The Altus kept sinking, the reading now over two
thousand meters while the cameras recorded every fish that swam past.

Susan blinked in the darkness as an eel dashed away with a wriggling
fish in its pelican-like jaws. The Altus sank lower, multiple
different species recorded on the cameras. “Fangtooth. Really
don’t live up to the name. At almost eight thousand meters,
this little guy is pretty—”

“Doctor Mason.” Ed’s voice interrupted her speech.
She felt a spark of annoyance; she’d have to re-record that
sentence later.

“What’s the matter, Ed?”

“The anomaly has appeared again. It’s below, but speeding
up and moving towards you, at over eighty knots.”

She peered into the darkness, shivering as the cooling air hit
her.

“Where is it? Whose sub is it?”

Richard’s smooth voice cut across the speakers. “Susan,
it’s not any sub as far as we can tell. It’s, well, it’s
too big. And too fast.”

“Actually, Doctor Mason, I’m not sure what it is. But
that’s not the issue, it’s—”

Susan shrieked as the craft shuddered, knocking her off her feet. The
lights flickered as the Altus dropped like a stone for a few seconds
before juddering back to its slow, measured descent.

The speakers crackled white noise for a moment before any voices came
through. “ ... //////san … are you there, Susan? Hello?”

Susan pulled herself off the padded carpeting onto the chair, her
head throbbing where it had collided with the floor. Basic emergency
lights illuminated the Altus, and the windows showed only blackness.

“Ed, what happened?” She tried to focus on the panel, but
her vision was blurred, her eyes watering.

“Susan, darling, are you alright?” Richard’s voice
crackled through the speakers.

“I’m fine, I think. Just banged my head. Now shush and
let me check on the craft, dear.”

“Doctor, the thing we saw on the sonar swam close to you and
the turbulence caused you problems.”

She looked at her instrument panel. She could see many of the
displays had changed to red, indicating emergency power, emergency
lighting, and a few warnings about propulsion issues. “Yes,
there’s some damage here, but nothing life-threatening. What on
earth was it?” Susan steadied herself by holding onto the panel
as her knees wobbled.

“Not sure yet, Doctor, but it was huge.”

“Huge? I designed the Altus to withstand turbulence from a blue
whale.”

“This was bigger,” Richard said.

“Don’t be stupid, dearest, there
isn’t
anything bigger.”

“Doctor, I can only report what the instruments say. Mister
Mason is right. This is showing as over forty five meters long.”

“What, that’s over a hundred and fifty feet! Nothing that
big has
ever
existed.”

“Yet … you’re already not far off Piccard’s
record. We don’t know what’s below you in great detail.
Remember, he was only down there for twenty minutes.”

Susan looked at the panel again but still couldn’t focus
properly. The engine was flashing a warning at her. “Damn this
light. I can’t see! There’s damage to my propulsion being
reported.”

“Darling,” the speakers squawked, “The video feed
is down, we can only hear you right now. Are you okay, your voice
sounds ... odd.”

“I’m okay, thank you, dear. Banged my head, a small cut
perhaps. But that’s not the problem. Whatever it was caused
some issues. The main engine is down. The emergency thrusters have
kicked in, keeping me from dropping too quickly, but I need to figure
out ... ”

Susan trailed off. Even though the exterior lights were down, she
could tell there was
something
outside the glass. Something
ancient with hulking breadth was out there, looking in at her sitting
in a strange, bright bubble. The light must be as alien to it as it
was to her.

She clung to the panel, her knuckles whitening. The darkness was
absolute, yet her skin crawled, the hair on her head standing on end
as her breath whistled through her throat. Even though her eyes could
see nothing, instinct told her something was outside, watching her.
Something old and ravenous. She sucked in a breath to scream ...

“Susan?” Richard voice dripped from the speakers,
reassuring normality. “We can see the engine problems now. We
need some time to fix what we can from here by running the
maintenance protocols, or we’ll have to use the emergency
recall button.”

Susan tore her eyes away from the blackness outside to answer, her
fear dissipating. How silly, to be scared by the dark. Must have been
the bang on the head.

“Only use that as a last resort, Richard. I don’t care
how worried you are. That recall brings me up too fast; I’ll
need to sit in the recompression chamber for days.”

Susan examined the display again. A flashing warning symbol caught
her attention. “Guys, more bad news. The oxygen mix computer is
down and the sub is still dropping.”

“Susan, I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry sir, I do,” Ed interrupted. “If
the mix goes out of synch with her depth, she will experience some,
ah, side effects. She’ll get dizzy, tired, unable to think
clearly.” Ed’s voice boomed over the speakers as he
directed his attention to her. “Doctor, how’s your head?”

“A little woozy still, but that’s because I knocked it.
I’m still drifting, almost ten thousand meters now. Wait, I can
see something.”

Susan bent her knees slightly, peering over the instruments through
the thick Plexiglas windows. The darkness moved. Small shadows
flickered past.

“What can you see?”

Susan’s inner scientist took over, and she fumbled with the
video camera controls. “I hope I can get this. It’s a
cusk eel. Famous for being the deepest-living known fish. Perfectly
suited to its habitat, it has no eyes as there’s no light here,
and it never goes to the surface. Damn it, why aren’t the
cameras working.”

“Still another record, doctor. It’s only ever been seen
at, mmm, 8,370 meters before.”

“I’m at, oh, dropping fast … almost ten and a half
thousand.”

Susan heard a sharp intake of breath crackle over the speakers.
“Doctor Mason, that’s way too fast, especially with your
oxygen mix problems.”

“I know, working on it. I think I can balance the thrusters to
slow me down.”

Susan worked the controls, tutting to herself at the weak response
from the bathysphere, but the descent slowed.

“Susan, the anomaly is on the sonar again.”

Susan felt it in her bones—a sound so deep that her hearing
couldn’t quite catch it. Blackness gaped through the windows,
but she felt that something was coming. Something big. It moved
outside, the turbulence pushing the sub into a sharp spin. With a
gasp, Susan fell to her knees, her head throbbing as it struck the
sharp corner of the panel. Warmth oozed from her scalp, sticky blood
dripping down her hair to the floor.

“
////... an. Susan? ////”

White noise. Static. She couldn’t hear properly. She knelt by
the panel, her eyes transfixed by the blackness outside. Even in that
ultimate darkness, she saw a hint of its dark gray back, the dull
glow of its eye as it swam past.

“I can’t see!” She slammed her hands against the
panel in anger, startled as the outside spotlights flickered on. Red
rubies seeped from her knuckles, but she ignored the wound, entranced
by the beams of light.

“ //// … breaking up, pl … //// ”

The spotlights struggled valiantly to pierce the murky depths, but
their narrow beams only enhanced the darkness outside their range.
Susan leaned closer to the glass, splayed fingers creating mist
coronas around the tips. The darkness was absolute but she knew it
was still out there. Her nose bumped against the glass at the same
time she saw a flash of color. Red luminescent lights flickered in a
slow pattern across a huge shape.

“ ... ////san? Can you hear...elp is on the way...///”

“Is that you?” Susan stepped away from the panel and
pressed her fingers against the glass. “Red luminescence.
Everything we’ve ever seen before has been blue or green.”

Thrumming resonated through the bathyscaphe.
It
was angry now.
The red light flickered away from the sub, the speed incredible. The
size of the creature was impossible to determine, but it was
enormous. Bigger than any whale, than any dinosaur had ever been.

“Look at you, like a giant Pliosaurs, long skull, torpedo body
and four giant flippers. But he died out a hundred million years
ago.”

“ ... ///// what’s she saying? She’s not making any
sense...//”

“//// need to get her up. It’s freezing down there, about
2 degrees. ////”

As she watched, the light pattern changed, the flashing colors sped
up and darkened. That was when the sound began again.

She tried to pinpoint where it was coming from, but it was everywhere
at once. Her heart thudded in her chest, her muscles turning into wet
spaghetti, dropping her to the cold floor. Her first thought was to
run, but she couldn’t move. There was nowhere to go.

It came out of the blackness.

Its size was unimaginable, gargantuan flanks rolling in and out of
the spotlights. Its snout hung open, the gap large enough to swallow
the Altus whole. A gigantic crocodile mouth showed row upon row of
serrated white teeth, mocking her fear with their graveyard evenness.
A black pupil stared at her, an inhuman intelligence challenging. The
sound was so deep, it hummed across her chest like a swarm of angry
bees.

“—hat’s that noise ... Susa—”

“Shhh, it’ll hear you,” she whispered, wrapping her
arms around her body for warmth.

The beast sailed majestically past her vessel, the turbulence once
more sending the craft into a tight spin.

The bathysphere eventually slowed, while continuing to drift down in
silence. No monster, no voices on the speakers. Total hush.

The blackness was intoxicating. She couldn’t tear her eyes
away, when a horrible thought took hold of her. She tried not to
think about it, but it kept gnawing at her, the logic unquestionable.
What if it had killed Richard and Ed?

She could see the support boat in her mind, overturned, gaping holes
smashed in the hull. The image had a feverish quality that made her
breath catch in her throat. Bodies floated in the water, all of them
face down, skin white and bloodless as gray shadows moved through the
water.

“Stop it, that’s crazy. It probably can’t survive
in shallow water.”