Deep Shadow by Randy Wayne White

Author:Randy Wayne White [White, Randy Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

WHEN THE TEENAGER, WILL CHASER, DROPPED HIS emergency air bottle, it was several seconds before Tomlinson noticed that the boy was in trouble.

Tomlinson was at the top of the chamber, using his flashlight to peer through a hole into a small room that reminded him of a snow globe—one of those little glass balls with a snowman inside or a Christmas tree next to a cake-icing chalet.

Instead of a miniature Swiss house, though, the room contained what even from a distance Tomlinson could see were man-made artifacts. There was pottery. Lots of broken shards, but a whole bowl, too. The pottery possessed an ancient Mayan curvature.

Was that a flint spear point?

Yes. There were several Indian points, plus what looked like carved fishhooks. And . . . he saw splinters of bone. There were bones scattered everywhere, and what might have been the carapace from a long-dead turtle.

That’s how clear the water was above them.

Into Tomlinson’s mind came an image. Shake the rock room and snow—or silt, in this case—would swirl in an enclosed universe that was as round and rough as a geode, forever insulated from the outside world. Added to the image were the flint artifacts. People had lived in this room, but then time had stopped when the earth had changed, causing the sea level to rise.

Tomlinson liked the thought of that. It redirected his attention from the horror of their predicament. The hole he was looking through was small, no wider than his own thigh. By wedging the flashlight close to his ear, though, he could fit his faceplate into the opening and see the far side of the room, where flint and bones and pottery were scattered and where small stalactites dripped from the ceiling.

Strange. Otherworldly. The room suggested a safe haven, even though it refused Tomlinson entrance. Thousands of years ago, people—a small tribe, perhaps—had flourished in this space, only to vanish into a refuge of time and silence and darkness.

That darkness would soon claim him, Tomlinson suspected. Probably within a very few minutes unless Ford pulled off a miracle. The man was capable of doing just that, although Ford would have been the last to believe it. But even if the darkness didn’t claim Tomlinson now, it soon would . . . So why did the timing matter?

As Tomlinson exhaled, he noted the sound and shape of his own exhaust bubbles. The bubbles expanded into silver oblong vessels, then burst into a star scape of smaller bubbles that scattered along the rock ceiling seeking corridors of ascent.

Watching the bubbles, Tomlinson felt a welling, peaceful euphoria. Transition . . . transformation . . . reformation. It was all right there, the whole human enchilada, inches from his own eyes.

It was kinda nice. Yeah, nice. No . . . it was perfect.

The feeling wasn’t anything like some of the more familiar sensations that Tomlinson treasured. For instance, the warming kick of a rum shooter after sex on a rainy summer night. Yet what he was now experiencing, this strange sense of perfection, was in its way more comforting.

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