What Lurks Beneath (23 page)

“I
keep asking myself, if there's some sort of giant octopus down there, why's it here now? All of a sudden, when we've never heard of this before? And why suddenly attacking people?”

Sturman shrugged. “You're the biologist. You tell me.”

“I don't know,” Val said. “There are lots of unusual clues, but the solid evidence just isn't there. I think I need to head back home before my imagination runs completely wild.”

In the dancing torchlight, with the sound of surf behind them, they leaned against the rock wall on the patio of the guesthouse. They'd eaten dinner with the others, but like usual there hadn't been much talk.

Yesterday, Val had finally apologized to Eric for getting upset at him. She realized that he'd simply been sticking up for himself. And she'd also forgiven Mack. But her uncle was still mad at Eric, and Eric was still glum from his date ending badly the other night. Apparently, Ashley still hadn't returned his calls.

Sturman said, “When I was a kid, we lived in the same ranch house for more than ten years. One year, right before we moved, we had a few weeks of really wet weather. Then these weird mushrooms appeared. They were everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Growin' in thick clumps that sprung up all over in the pasture by the house.

“We'd had plenty of wet seasons before that, plenty of rain. But in a decade there I'd never seen those mushrooms in my life.”

“So what are you saying?” she said.

“Maybe, in nature, sometimes it just takes the perfect set of conditions to trigger something. With the mushrooms, maybe it was all the rain, or some cyclical sorta thing. Here, in this case, maybe the final bit of rain your octopus needed was the naval testing.”

She touched her belly. She considered telling him, but stopped. No. Not now. Not until she knew for sure, one way or another. Maybe this was all in her imagination too.

The market they'd been to today didn't carry any home pregnancy kits, so she'd have to wait. But she'd talked to more than one doctor in the past. She was damaged inside. Permanently. From a poor decision she had made so many years ago, as a foolish young woman. Back when she made decisions only with her heart, and her loins, and not with her head.

She was always making bad decisions in her personal life. She was still mad at herself for kissing Sturman. But she hadn't been able to send him away. He'd come all the way here just to see her.

Will Sturman was like an overgrown teenager, or a perpetually failing college student. Who else flew almost 4,000 miles after a woman, hoping he might find a place to crash? Maybe that was what happened to a man after he spent years in the Navy, then became self-employed, lived on a boat, and never raised a family. But a part of her liked the hopeless romantic in him.

He said, “Did you know that thousands of years ago, Egyptians hunted octopuses for food? They lowered clay pots into the water, and when the octopuses went inside they just brought the pots back up. Just like that, they had dinner.”

Val smiled. “No, Will, I did not know that.”

“Thing is, I can't figure out why such smart animals can be trapped and killed so easy.”

“An octopus is like a cat, I guess.”

“Curiosity kills them?” he said.

“Exactly. You're really getting into them, aren't you? Working at the aquarium?”

He shrugged. “Well, I thought it was a safer interest than squid. Now I'm starting to wonder. With what Eric told me about that woman missing at that resort, and the kid in the swimming hole . . .”

“It's got you wondering too. About the
lusca
.”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Well, right away, we write off the shark-head part. We focus on the large size, and the image of what might be a tentacle—”

“Don't forget bone piles,” Eric said, walking out onto the patio.

Val turned to him. “Right, and the features in the marine hole resembling middens.” She thought for a moment. “I keep coming to the same conclusion. I guess it's possible to have an undiscovered species of giant octopus, or maybe a novel type of giant squid, but it's very unlikely. And we're not going to find out on this expedition unless it decides to come out and meet us.”

Sturman snorted. “Same old Doc. Never believes in anything she can't bring back to the lab.”

“That's because I question things, instead of just believing everything I hear. It's called science, Will.”

“But he's got a point,” Eric said. “You are pretty skeptical, even for a scientist.”

“Ganging up on me now, huh?” she said.

Eric turned to Sturman. “I still think it's possible. Did you know we know more about the surface of the moon than about our own deep oceans?”

Sturman nodded. “I've heard that before.”

“It's true. You can look it up. NASA's annual research budget for space exploration is four
billion
dollars. But you know how much the US government spends on ocean research?”

“I suppose you're gonna tell us,” Sturman said.

“Less than twenty-five million bucks. That's it. Less than
one percent
of what we waste to explore lifeless planets and distant stars every year. So we really don't know what's living deep down in the ocean. Nobody does.”

Val said, “Eric's right about that. But it doesn't mean there's a bunch of giant octopuses living here, undiscovered for hundreds of years. There's virtually no legitimate documentation. No real evidence for an undiscovered species. Besides, what on earth would it eat to sustain itself? This part of the ocean isn't nearly as productive as, say, the North Pacific. Or Monterey Bay.”

“Maybe they eat those little whales down here,” Sturman said.

Eric laughed. “How would an octopus eat a whale, even if it was big enough? Do they even have teeth?”

Sturman regarded him for a moment. “You really don't know? They have a beak.”

“I know. But it's just a beak.”

Sturman smiled, extending his right hand toward Eric, palm up, as if to flip him the bird. Where his middle finger should have been there was a stump. “Bad drivers all over Southern California have a beak to thank for this.”

“
That
's from an octopus beak?”

“No. But close enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

Val said, “I'll tell you some other time
.
But back to the whales. If our hypothetical giant octopuses feed on them, then why don't we ever see sucker marks on the ones that got away?”

Eric said, “You said yourself that scientists know very little about the whales here. And there are other animals to eat. Sharks, rays, groupers. Other big fish.”

“But octopuses prefer to eat shellfish. Smaller animals that move slower.”

Sturman shook his head. “Maybe. But even a pretty small octopus can kill and eat a shark. Seen it myself, in an aquarium video.”

Val sighed. The ridiculousness of it all hit her again. Even though Andros Island historically had a small human population, reducing the chance of sightings; even though they had a picture of a suckered arm from inside a blue hole; even though people were going missing, with witnesses claiming they'd seen a sea monster—

“Why
are
you here, then, Val?” Sturman said. “If you don't think what we're talking about is even possible, why did you come down here in the first place?”

She looked away from him. At first, she thought maybe it was mainly just to get away from him. To give herself room to think. As she tried to figure out what to say, Eric spoke up.

“Sturman, you work back at the aquarium. You'd really appreciate the exhibits they have here at Oceanus. The place is a monstrosity, full of rich assholes, but the aquariums are first-class.”

Sturman stared at Val a few moments longer, as if reading her thoughts, then looked over at Eric. “Yeah. I think I'd like to see those while I'm here.”

Val said, “You should bring him with you tomorrow, Eric.”

He said, “Sure. You want to join me tomorrow? They're releasing a manta ray, first thing in the morning.”

“Aren't you going, Val?” Sturman said.

“I still have more work to do.”

“Well, hell, I'm in. I gotta see this.”

After the men went inside to get ready for bed, she remained. She watched as the clouds began to blot out the stars. Moisture was on its way.

She mostly thought about Will. He had such determination. But would he ever have the ambition to do any of the things he was so capable of? She thought maybe she'd go after all.

O
n the shallow bottom, she ceased moving, tasting the water in the lagoon. Tonight, there was nothing.

On another recent night, near here, she had found the dead whale. And the other, living prey on which she had also fed. The unusual prey that had now become a regular part of her diet.

She could not stray far from her den. Not now. But she could not suppress the nagging urge.

She moved along the familiar sandy bottom, again pressing herself low beneath the gentle waves, and maneuvered her great body toward the beach, over coral heads and sea grass beds until the waves started to break over her leading arms. There, she stopped. Felt. Tasted.

She slid back into the deeper water of the dark lagoon and moved down the beach, remaining in the shallows. This place was not safe, not comfortable. But perhaps it would again yield sustenance.

She felt the first vibrations.

She stopped moving. She turned back toward shore. The clicks rose in intensity as she neared, arousing her, but again she was confronted by the impassable shallows.

This was food. And it was very close.

She moved quickly toward the source of the vibrations, compressed between the waves and the jagged coral bottom, now past the sandy beach. As she slid into a rough channel of deeper water toward the sounds, her writhing arms slid fluidly around most of the obstructions, but in her haste she broke off many fragile coral fans and pillars, scattering the terrified sea life.

Mild waves now crested over the small island of her protruding flesh. She paused in the shallows at the very edge of the ocean, at the very edge of her own world, and extended the first of her arms.

Immediately, the long, exploring appendages crossed the surf line. They felt impossibly heavy as they left the water and entered the space above it, and then met with the firm shore. The friction between her own flesh and the rigid surface of the land was incredible, but the arms found it even harder to raise themselves into the thin, unsupportive air above.

Testing the unfamiliar world, moving in various ways, some of her arms soon began to move most effectively in hydrostatic fashion, by inching themselves along the hard ground in short, regular sequences. Extensions, followed by contractions. This collective information was shared, passed through her brain and to each of the other limbs.

Still, no food was encountered. And the clicking sounds were gone. From where had they come?

The arms explored, on land and in the sea. One of the arms still submerged beside her found a break in the land; a narrow hole, where the seawater extended farther into the hard, unyielding landscape.

The single pulse of sound reverberated from within the narrow hole and again passed into her soft body. Whatever was emitting the clicks was close. Very close. Somewhere within the hole, or just past it. But even the tip of her tentacle could not pass into the tiny opening.

There was food here. She was certain. But she could not reach it. She expelled an enormous measure of spent seawater, clouding the darkness around her with sand.

Ingesting more water, she calmed. More patiently now, she carefully felt at the opening. Water flowed slowly past the exploring arm, steadily, into the hole. There had to be water beyond.

She remained in the surf line for some time, testing the shore for a route. But there was no deep water. No submerged tunnel besides the tiny hole. No passage. Her hunger nagged at her, a wrenching thing inside her. Commanding her to action.

She focused on the four arms still extended out of the water, and pulled her huge body several more inches from the water.

In coordination, the arms heaved her forward, this time assisted by the push of the arms gathered behind her. The oppressive weight of the outer world increased, and for the first time she found it difficult to take seawater in to oxygenate her gills.

She contracted her arms again.

Dragging her immense, saclike body out of the water and onto the dark rocks, she felt impossibly heavy. The rough edges cut into her skin as she crept forward, as tons of flesh pressed down on itself, unable to rise off the surface without the necessary hydrostatic support of water. But the jagged surface was narrow, quickly replaced by an equally hard, but mercifully flat, surface. As she moved farther from the water, the weight of her boneless body crushed down on itself, flattening painfully, the oxygen in her blood quickly dwindling as she found herself unable to breathe. Seawater drained from within her cavity in sheets.

Still she pressed forward.

Splayed on the dark concrete, her lead arms groped desperately ahead of her. There had to be water somewhere ahead. Her trailing arms were now leaving the ocean behind her. She felt the first impulse to stop. To turn back. A faintness began to overcome her. Her arms extended again. With immense effort, she lurched forward. Extended an arm as far as its length would reach.

She dragged her bulk toward it, along the hard ground, feeling many small tears erupting in her flesh. But now her arms were entering another pool of water. Immediately, their chemical receptors tasted the prey. The clicking sounds had come from here. But thoughts of feeding had left her mind. She felt herself losing consciousness, and desperately pulled her bulk toward the water. Toward safety.

She reached the edge. The pool of water dropped off steeply, providing a solid anchor from which to pull with her lead arms. She pulled again, and her flattened, wet body overhung the lip of concrete. A final lurch, and then she was rolling forward.

She sank heavily into the pool, sending a large wave across its surface.