Something's Down There by Mickey Spillane

Author:Mickey Spillane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schusters
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The diving party reached the assigned area thirty minutes after leaving the Sentilla ’s floating dock. The bottom was thirty-two feet below the surface, but every detail, every contour was clearly visible. The ocean itself was placid, barely undulating at all. Only fish jumping here and there made an impression in that great greenish-blue expanse. For a change there were no strands of sargassum floating about, buoyed up by the bubbles along their fronds.

When Kim gave the signal the divers began dropping off the inflatables at regular intervals, going to the bottom, where they fanned out to follow the grid pattern Kim had given them. As he had said he would, Mako stayed behind Chana, thirty feet to the right of Judy but in plain sight of her.

The task was simple enough, pushing the marker flags eighteen inches into the sand, making sure their plastic triangles were fully unfurled. At preselected points they angled westward about twenty degrees, sloping downward very gradually. Twice the team went up to the inflatables to take another bundle of markers, then dove back to their positions for the final placements.

Nature was a living thing, the ocean currents part of her fluid mobility. Their changes in course and pattern were slight, but each variation caused some other force to alter its way and conform to a new avenue that could possibly alter conditions and situations above. Even here, in the warm, placid waters where they placed the flags, the recordings would indicate movements and speed that Woods Hole personnel would be able to sense and interpret.

Mako looked at his watch. They had been down for almost two hours but in shallow waters. There was no need for decompression, but the work was monotonous and he was beginning to think of how nice an ice-cold Lite beer would be. He waved over toward Judy and got her eye.

He got the eye of something else too. Suddenly it came up out of the sand, huge and black, its initial movement clouding the waters so all he could see was something gaping, something wide and monstrous, a horribly big and long thing that had no name, dangerously alive and vital. Its movements had a thrashing motion, powerful enough to churn the water into momentary, sandy translucency, and when it swept past Chana the force of its movements flipped her upside down, her arms and legs waving wildly. Judy had spotted it as soon as Mako did and she dove into the sand, fingers clawed to anchor herself. Up ahead some of the others had felt the pressure of movement in the sea, looked back and kicked furiously to get out of the area.

Mako’s back brushed the bottom and he was looking upward, a dive knife a futile weapon in his hand. He watched the extremities of the thing whip past him, estimated the length at least two hundred feet, made a slash with the knife at the very trailing edge and flipped over as the thing passed and disappeared out of sight.

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