The police officer looked at him for a couple of seconds and then nodded. “Just don’t forget to call in at the station.”
“Come on, Shazam.” Bruce jogged quickly back up the beach to the road. Shazam bounded along at his side. He stared up at the cliffs, but Lillian Brown was no longer in sight. He didn’t know whether her absence made him feel better or worse.
When he reached the house, he ran inside and called Jack’s name. Upon receiving no reply, he ran upstairs to Jack’s bedroom, only to find it deserted, the sheets tossed on the ground and the clothes he had been wearing the previous day missing.
Bruce knew it was taking a risk phoning Jack on his mobile, as the wrath of a son who feels he’s being spied on wasn’t worth thinking about, but Bruce felt anxious. The phone rang a number of times before the automated voice of the woman at the message centre cut in to tell him the person was unavailable. Bruce disconnected the call without leaving a message. He was just being paranoid.
But what if he wasn’t? What if Jack had decided today of all days to go swimming?
Today when there was something ravenous swimming in the depths. Something with a taste for flesh.
Chapter 11
Erin McVey stood on the diving platform of the research vessel and donned her dry suit. A slight wind tussled her hair. She pulled her hood up. Her diving buddy, Kevin James, went through the safety checks on her equipment, then she reciprocated, making herself familiar with his releases, confirming that he had ample air for the dive, that the valves were open, and that the regulator and alternative air sources worked. On a final inspection, she checked for out of place equipment, dangling gauges and missing gear. Their lives depended on making sure everything was okay.
She had been diving here with Kev for the last three weeks, taking samples of the local sea life. What had surprised her was the lack of fish. Usually they flitted from the depths, bright shoals in the glare of the Dive Light, but since she had been here, she had spotted only a few solitary specimens.
She tested her regulator, which made her recall her first diving experience and the alien feel of breathing underwater. Unlike one person on her diving course, she hadn’t panicked, but it still took a couple of days to get used to. Now it was second nature, and sometimes preferable to being on the surface.
Erin had fine-tuned her buoyancy after eighteen dives–for some people it took a lot longer. At depth, she had to add air to the suit to stop it becoming uncomfortably tight. The downside was it added buoyancy, so she’d had to learn to manage the air via an exhaust valve.
She strapped the five-inch titanium dive knife to her leg.
Satisfied all the safety checks were complete, she picked up her mask, gave a thumbs up to the crew on deck, then stepped back to the edge of the platform and dropped into the water.
Kev dropped in beside her. He’d chosen not to wear a hood and his black hair hung in the water around his face like tentacles.
“You ready?” Kev asked.
Erin smiled. “Always ready.”
“What about willing and able?”
“Now that’s something you’ll never find out.”
“Your loss.”
She grinned. “I’ll live.” She spat in her mask and then swilled it in the water to stop it fogging up before donning it.
Finally ready, she inserted her regulator, gave Kev the thumbs up and dived.
She followed the guide rope leading down from the platform. The water was a murky green colour, and after less than 20 feet, she switched on her dive light, illuminating tiny plankton in the beam.
Erin and her team had been assigned to determine the effects of exploratory and development drilling, exploring the impact on the environment, especially which hazards and environmental issues had to be considered when planning to drill in a specific location.
Not all of her work took place out in the field, but it was where she was happiest. Being stuck in an office didn’t suit her, and after a few days she would start to feel like a mermaid out of water.
When she reached the seabed, she spotted a brightly coloured sea slug rippling across the rocks and an alien looking spider crab skittering into a crevice. The sight of the various undersea denizens never failed to amaze her. She’d once read that although three-quarters of the earth is liquid, only one-tenth of one percent of the ocean had been explored, and every time she dived, she felt she was entering an uncharted realm.
Shining her light across the seabed, she marvelled at the various colours reflected back. She could see Kev at her side, specimen bag at the ready, and she indicated the direction they should swim.
Erin felt truly liberated underwater; felt it was the closest a person could come to flying.
Up ahead she knew there was a steep drop off. Swimming over it made her feel vertiginous and disorientated, as though she were over an abyss. The drop off was almost at the limits of how deep she could go, so she didn’t intend going too close.
The seabed slowly shelved down, and the deeper Erin swam, the less visibility she had. Despite the layers of thermal clothing, she could still feel the cold permeating through to her bones. Within her suit, she shivered.
As she swam, her thoughts drifted. She recalled the man she had met a couple of hours ago, Bruce Holden, and a warm thrill swept through her body. Although he was older than she was, she had fancied him straight away. His charismatic look appealed to her. She had never dated anyone with kids before–had never had a maternal streak–but in Bruce’s case, she could make an exception.
Remembering the woman’s scream, she wondered whether they had found the reason behind it. Perhaps she should have gone to help, but work came first.
She made a gradual descent, adding air to her suit to combat the pressure of the water while also keeping an eye on the depth gauge. If she descended too fast, she would suffer the same kind of ear popping experienced going up in a plane, which could be painful. When she reached the depth she required, she wanted to be in a neutrally buoyant state. Achieving that state meant she would sink a little when she exhaled and float a little when she inhaled.
One thing she didn’t want to do was contact any solid objects. Contacting the substrate would stir up sediment, reduce visibility and damage the organisms that lived on the surfaces.
Kev appeared at her side. He indicated to her that he was moving away to look at something. Erin acknowledged his signal and watched him swim into the inky blackness. Almost out of sight, she could see a dim corona of light from his dive lamp, almost ghostly in the depths like the bioluminescence emitted by a host of marine animals.
Movement caught her eye. Expecting to see a fish, she turned her head, but there was nothing there. She shone the light around, following the course of its beam, but couldn’t see anything. About to shine her light back on the path she was taking, she saw something caught in the beam. Situated at the limits of the light’s reach, it appeared to absorb the light. Erin frowned.
About to swim over and investigate, she saw a flash of light to her left. She recognised it as Kev’s flashlight beam. But there was something strange about the way it was moving, as though it was being waved frantically.
A strange sense of panic swept over her. She could feel the beat of her heart increase, could feel a thin layer of sweat glaze her body. Something wasn’t right.
She watched the beam of light zigzag through the ocean. Kev was heading towards the drop off. She could see that he was already much deeper than she was. What the hell was he playing at?
Fighting the sense of dread, she started to swim towards him. Something moved in the blackness to her right, creating currents of water that made the plankton swirl in the beam. She swept the light around–thought for a moment she saw something large dart away. It looked too large to have been one of the many fish supposed to swim these waters. But if it wasn’t, then what was it? A porpoise perhaps? Or a seal?