Elena’s eyes widened. “You don’t think—”
Nathan stumbled over from the rear compartment, his voice lowered to an urgent whisper. “Dim the lights.”
Blackwell quickly obeyed, killing the main lights and plunging them into darkness illuminated only by the violet pulses and the sub’s tiny auxiliary lights. His stomach clenched as he carefully steered them above one of the huge tentacles. It wriggled underneath, too close for comfort; a never-ending serpent with no visible beginning or end. More enormous appendages drifted all around them, most reduced to gargantuan shadows in the gloom.
“Where are they coming from?”
“I don’t know.” Sweat slid down Blackwell’s face. The tentacles were everywhere, any one of them capable of crushing the submarine with the slightest ease. Negotiating the cramped space took all the skill he could muster in a deadly combination of diving under and over the serpentine limbs.
A noise rattled the sub, a trumpeting groan that sounded like mountains clashing together.
“Get us out of here!”
Blackwell’s teeth clenched. His hands tightened on the controls, risking a burst of speed. They shot forward, barely clearing the mass of wriggling appendages. He heard twin sighs of relief from Nathan and Elena.
Life swam around them. Aquatic creatures drifted by, pale and translucent, glimmering with voltaic hues as if powered by electricity. Fish, jellies, and strange, bizarre swimming creatures with grinning mouths and glowing eyes filled the waters as if disturbed from the darkest, deepest pits of the ocean.
“Oh my God.”
Nathan stared behind them, his mouth ajar, fingers pressed against the glass. Blackwell eased off the propellers and angled the sub for a better look. What he saw was too terrifying to believe.
It was as if a mountain had come to life. Beyond massive, it loomed nearly beyond the range of vision. The colossal head consisted mainly of rows of dull red eyes and the same tentacles they had just emerged from. The rest of the creature was covered in rocky carapace, dark scaly skin that glinted in the purple light. It was too large to see entirely, much of it lost in the gloom. But what was visible was enough. It was a primordial Titan, some ancient effigy emerged from a realm where gods and monsters still ruled.
Elena gasped. “Were we on top of that thing all this time? Is the Tantalus built on it?”
The tentacles wriggled, and the sound emitted again; a deep, nearly melodic moan. The submarine rocked as the sound struck it, the seismic vibrations rattling the interior. The creature stirred, staring their direction with eyes like red moons. Intelligence shimmered in their terrible depths, recognition of the submarine and its horrified occupants.
Nathan tapped his shoulder. “We have to go. Now.”
Blackwell swallowed and nodded, seizing the controls as the creature’s tentacles stretched toward them. Sea animals fled in glimmering streaks, on their way to safer waters.
Light blazed from everywhere.
The creature trumpeted as a flare of pure violet erupted from underneath it. The cord of galvanic energy sizzled as it surged toward the surface. The creature writhed as it was caught in the beam of purple light. A terrible sound emitted from its core, the scream from a legion of agonized throats. The dark form rippled, squid ink on boil, a dark cloud trying to hold itself together.
The force of the blast was too strong. Blackwell thought he saw faces at the last moment, millions of ebony, screaming faces laced across the entire surface of the creature. It finally disintegrated in the blast, ripped to pieces as if its gargantuan mass were nothing. The fragments were dissolved, quickly devoured by the brilliant channel of violet energy. The force flared outward, rushing toward them in visible ripples of pure energy.
Blackwell gritted his teeth. “Everyone get strapped in!”
The shockwave struck the submarine with the crushing force of a boot against an aluminum can. They were flung through the waters as if the ocean didn’t exist. The light blazed, obliterating everything. The world span in disorienting, stomach-churning circles. He heard screams, not certain if they were from Nathan, Elena, or himself. The unnerving sounds of steel buckling and glass cracking were unnaturally loud, so similar to the sounds when the Gorgon was destroyed. The realization struck Blackwell with ominous certainty. He had been wrong about beating the odds.
He wasn’t going to make it after all.
Postlude: Detritus
From his vantage point on the USS Knightmare, Senator Jack Blackwell stared at the end of the world.
They had pushed through a storm of catastrophic proportions, where for a panicked moment he actually thought the entire carrier would go under. The legend of the Bermuda Triangle and its mysterious disappearances had loomed in his mind, and he wondered if it was his fate to die chasing the ghost of his foolhardy son.
But the Knightmare hadn’t sunk, and the waters eventually calmed to choppy seas of normal scope. But no sign was found of the Tantalus or Alexander’s ship, the Halifax. It was as if both had completely vanished, wiped out of existence. But Jack refused to believe Alex was dead. Blackwells didn’t die so easily. He’d taken four bullets in Vietnam and been left for dead. He survived. His father had been a POW in WWI. He survived. It seemed a Blackwell legacy to succeed in the face of imminent death. He’d been worried that Alexander would never have that defining moment, never rise from the ashes and be reborn a new man. A better man.
A Blackwell.
Well, Alexander’s moment was upon him. So when the captain told Jack nothing was out there, he just sneered. When his team of scientists and researchers told him they couldn’t pinpoint any signs of energy or life, he told them to look harder. When the president of the United States called with a request to call off the mission and return for a much-needed conference on the Bermuda situation, Jack hung up on the President.
There was no turning back. It was his son out there. He was alive. Jack knew it.
He had to be.
Jack stood on the outside rampart of the command deck, squinting in the rain. He had enough of being inside, where the halls reeked of sweat and vomit. He wanted to be outside the control room, stare into the face of his enemy. The waves were still strong and powerful, but nothing he hadn’t seen before. He glowered at the dark, angry water as it threw its power against the battleship. The wind was equally vicious, flinging rain so hard it stung. Jack endured; hands behind his back, legs braced against the howling billows. The worst was over. It was only a matter of time before they picked up his son’s signal.
Then the phenomenon occurred. In an instant, the ocean changed. The roaring waves, the shrieking winds, the terrible storm. All dissipated in a single moment, from storm to calm so suddenly it was terrifying. The waters went still, without a ripple as far as he could see.
Uneasy muttering buzzed from the commanders behind him. He shared their disbelief, staring at what could only be considered the most unnatural of abnormalities.
A thick, sizzling beam of energy erupted from the waters, so intensely bright that Jack was temporarily blinded. When his vision refocused he was on the cold steel of the rampart floor, weak and trembling. Helping hands grabbed hold of him, lifted him up. Someone slipped a pair of heavy shielded glasses over his eyes.
“Sir, are you all right?”
“Sir, we need to get you inside.”