Dead Asleep (15 page)

Chapter 23

E
mma jumped into the ocean after Carrow, who had already submerged. The clear, sparkling water was effervescent below the surface for several feet as she swam after Carrow slowly, taking care to descend in a leisurely fashion. A school of small neon-colored fish swam to and fro in front of her, moving in unison with rapid precision. A large slow-moving fish passed to her left. Its round eye seemed to look at her, then away.

She kept her breathing regular and calm. The biggest issue for her underwater was always the tendency to panic as she passed the fifteen meter mark. Her instructor had suggested that it might be nitrogen narcosis, a common condition that usually manifested at lower depths but could occur at any time. Every diver experienced it to some extent at depths below thirty meters, but the level and intensity changed for each person and each dive, and there was no way to train one's body to avoid it. The inevitability and unpredictability of nitrogen narcosis was what made it so dangerous.

The general symptoms for a diver were feelings of happiness or dread, decreased judgment, panic, the inability to remember the steps required to dive, and eventual unconsciousness and death. Divers had been known to think they could breathe underwater and take the regulators out of their mouths. In previous episodes, Emma's mild panic at depth had led to rapid breathing that depleted her tank quicker than it should have, but over the last three years she'd learned to expect the panic and force herself to continue to breathe slowly until it passed.

The sea darkened as they descended, and then the top of an arch came into view. Emma's depth perception was off, because the arch opening at first seemed as wide as ten feet but then appeared to narrow to three feet. She blinked, trying to discern if it was the angle of approach that made the arch move or if she was actually suffering from narcosis and experiencing the tunnel vision that was another marker of the condition. She focused on keeping her breathing even and slow, and her fins moving in a rhythmic, relaxing progression. After a few more feet of descent she saw the darker, round opening of the first blue hole. It lay directly at the base of the arch, about twenty feet farther below.

A shape attached to the left outer portion of the arch came into view. It was part of a boat's windshield hanging from the side of the arch. It seemed the windshield had snagged on a spiky section. Several small, bullet-sized holes pocked the glass, and the rest had shattered in a crazy pattern. Carrow reached the arch first and she saw him peer at the windshield. He ran his hand along the top of the arch before he continued down, toward the blue hole.

Emma approached the arch and also ran her hand along it. It was at least ten feet wide, and she realized that her perception of motion had come from the combination of the current that ran through it and the fact that a portion was broken off. It appeared to have been hacked at with an ax. She saw from the closest section that the sparkling blue mineral compound was only present in the first quarter inch of the arch. The rest appeared to be nothing more than a shell-like substance. From what she could see, there were only a few bits of the unique mineral left, and certainly not enough to supply an ingredient for a major cosmetic company's product.

She grabbed her tools and began scraping across the top, collecting pieces for later analysis. Perhaps the compound could be re-created in the lab in larger quantities. After filling a quart-sized bag she returned the tools to her belt.

She'd kept an eye on both her watch and her compass while diving, and now descended to the blue hole's entrance. Carrow was already there, staring to his right. Emma looked that way and her heart clutched. Slumped next to the opening was the body of a diver. It wore a black wet suit that ended at its ankles. The feet had been gnawed away, probably by fish, and the mask swayed in the water's current because no face anchored it. It, too, had been eaten. Emma couldn't see any evidence of the diver's oxygen tanks, but the remains of a regulator were clutched in the diver's right hand. Most of the flesh was gone but enough remained to see that the diver had been male.

Emma swallowed. She wondered if the shattered windshield and the dead diver were related. Perhaps an explosion caused the windshield to shatter and rip off from the boat? If so, she wondered what type of explosion. She glanced around, looking for any indication that the rest of the boat had followed the windshield down, but the area was clear. She knew they were actually on a promontory under the water. Maps of the area indicated that it extended over five hundred yards in all directions and then sloped downward, presumably all the way to the sea bottom. Too low for anyone to dive and low enough to swallow up the hull and remaining pieces of the shattered boat, if there were any.

She moved away from the body and back to the blue hole's entrance, put her hands on the edge and peered in. Carrow joined her. He stayed crouched at her right side as she collected more of the mineral. After six minutes on her watch, he floated up a bit, hovering over her head and looking around. He swam in a small circle above her. She thought he was marking time until she could complete the collection. Seven minutes later she was done. She put her tools away, attached the collection bag to her, and looked around for Carrow.

He was gone.

She experienced a moment of sheer panic. That he'd been floating above her one minute and gone the next sent her anxiety flying. She moved upward, forcing herself to swim in the same leisurely pace she'd used on descent. As she passed the midpoint of the arch's opening she spotted Carrow fifteen feet to her right, swimming away from her.

She checked her watch. They had five minutes left to explore and then would have to begin their ascent. She followed him through arch, but kicking fast, trying to catch up and warn him about the time. It wasn't until she was through the opening that she realized it was actually a tunnel, leading downward. Carrow was descending into it.

She caught up with him and lightly touched his leg. He stopped descending and she made the signal to ascend. He nodded but turned back into the tunnel. She touched him again, shook her head no and pointed back, out of the tunnel. He pointed downward. Again she signaled no. He made the sign for ascent and pointed downward.

Emma realized that he'd gotten disoriented. He believed that descending into the tunnel was ascending. She shook her head more vigorously, pointing upward. Carrow reached to his compass and held it in front of her, showing her its face.

The compass reading confirmed that they were to head farther into the tunnel if they were to ascend. Emma's entire being rebelled at the idea that the direction he pointed was correct, yet the compass verified what Carrow thought. She checked her own compass, but it appeared to be broken. She shook it, hoping to get it to function again, but it remained dark.

He watched her through his mask with a patient look on his face. Emma remembered Marwell's comment that Carrow was an experienced diver, and his calm in the face of her misunderstanding confirmed this fact, but she still believed that to continue to descend through the arch tunnel meant that they'd eventually use up all their air. Once they realized their mistake, they wouldn't have enough to complete an ascent. They'd die.

Emma's life had once been irrevocably altered by the lack of a compass. She'd been downed in a jungle and lost hers in the ensuing plane crash. Since that day she never traveled without one, and her belief in them as a lifesaving tool was unshakable. Yet now she struggled with the idea that Carrow's compass was wrong.

She grabbed him by the arm and shook her head no. Carrow's eyes first registered surprise, then concern. She saw him grapple with how to convince her that the direction she thought was the correct one was wrong. He shook his head very slowly, showed her the compass, pointed down the tunnel and began to swim in that direction.

Emma felt the low level panic she'd been working to control surge to the forefront. She swallowed in fear. If she followed, she would have to commit to the direction for as long as it took. She decided that her confusion must stem from nitrogen narcosis and so forced herself to go after him. She couldn't shake her belief that the compass was wrong, but the idea that a compass was broken in a way that showed the wrong direction entirely didn't seem likely. Either Carrow's compass was correct or there had to be another explanation. She followed with a feeling of overwhelming dread that they were going in the exact wrong direction.

Meanwhile, everything she knew about compasses ran through her mind. That they pointed magnetic north, for instance, not true north. Depending on where one was on the Earth, true north could be as much as twenty degrees east or west. While the deviation was small, over time and distance it could result in navigational mistakes of several thousand feet.

They were technically within the area that would include a tip of the Bermuda Triangle, and some claimed that a narrow band of the Triangle was one of the two places on earth where true north and magnetic north aligned, the other being the North Pole. In that case, there would be no deviation between the two readings. None of these facts, though, explained why the compass appeared to be sending them off course.

Emma glanced at her watch. In ten seconds they would have been swimming for five minutes. She had to make a decision to either try to convince Carrow one more time that the compass was wrong or follow him into what every instinct told her was the deep. She swam even with his shoulder and moved slightly ahead.

The tunnel opened into a large, cavelike area. Stalactites and stalagmites pointed above and below them. The walls were jagged with dents and divots, and large pieces of the stalactites that broke off had fallen to the base of the cave. She saw three more bodies, their corpses in various stages of decomposition. All looked to be male. One had a collection bag gripped in his hand, and an ax lay next to the other. The cave provided proof that they had gone in the wrong direction, because they hadn't passed through it on descent.

Carrow turned to look at her and she saw the horror in his eyes. He grabbed at his compass and Emma reached for hers. The reading had reverted and now it confirmed that they had gone the wrong way. Carrow swung his hand up to show her the compass face. As he did, black liquid erupted from an opening at the far wall of the cave. It billowed outward, like the ink shot from an octopus. The current shifted, and Emma felt a riptide punch her in the chest and drag her back toward the tunnel's opening. She reached for Carrow's arm and held on tight as the vacuum pulled them upward, back the way they had come, but three times as fast as they'd descended. She tumbled in the water, hitting the tunnel's sides. Carrow slammed into her and then bounced back against the tunnel's wall and his arm yanked from her grip. His spare oxygen tank dislodged and hit her in the face before spinning away.

Emma tried to slow her ascent by grabbing at the smooth walls around her. She embedded her nails in it and felt the tips break one by one. Pain shot through her fingers and she felt a nail rip deeply into the cuticle.

The black ink compressed into the tunnel and filled the area behind them. It kept coming on, and she hoped it wasn't poisonous or acidic. She bit down on the regulator so tightly that her jaws ached. Reaching the end of the tunnel, she shot out into the open, getting a quick glimpse of the arch as the current continued to carry her up. Carrow followed, his arms wheeling as he tried to fight the surge. The ink spread, turning the water a dirty gray.

Emma turned her head to the side and kicked as hard as she could at a right angle to the riptide. Managing to break free, she swam away while doing her best to stay at the same depth. She saw Carrow using his arms in a motion opposite to the current in an attempt to slow his ascent. He curled his body into a ball and then kicked outward, managed to free himself from the concentrated stream and float sideways. But he was at least fifteen feet above her when she saw his body go limp. Unconscious, he began to float higher.

Emma swam up to Carrow and wrapped her fingers around his belt. She pulled him closer and checked his pulse and his tank. He was breathing but was dangerously low on air. Their rapid ascent made the lack of air the lesser of their worries, though, because now they faced decompression issues unless they could stay at this level for at least two minutes. The black ink was pooling below her and she didn't want to remain in the water when it reached their altitude. She held Carrow in place next to her and checked her depth gauge. They were at eighteen feet, ideal for a safety stop. She hovered in the water, holding his belt, and did her best to slow her own breathing. A ringing in her ears indicated that she also was feeling the effects of their rapid ascent.

She watched the black ink work its way upward. A pool of fish skittered away, curving to avoid it. Emma swam up three more feet before checking her compass. She tried to settle her mind, focus on the steps she needed to take to compensate for the nitrogen narcosis that she presumed made her misread the device earlier, but she couldn't seem to think straight. She decided to watch her depth gauge instead, figuring there was time enough to locate the boat once they had safely surfaced.

A flash of yellow caught her eye. She swam that way and it became less fuzzy and more outlined. She felt tears prick behind her eyes when she realized that she was looking at the yellow ascent line attached to the boat. Wrapping an arm around Carrow's chest, she dragged him with her toward the line. When she reached it, she yanked on it, paused and consulted her watch. She'd risk it and wait two minutes, not three. The ink was approaching fast.

When it seemed enough time had passed to safely ascend again, she swam upward, bringing Carrow with her. The sun sparkled above her head and the boat's hull bobbed in the water. She reached the surface and removed her regulator and mask as Oz leaned over the side, his expression grim.