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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aziza
Don’t panic.I grasped my flashlight and pivoted my body, putting my back toward the deep freeze, where the skeletons of the past had remained untouched. Their ghosts, however, were very much disturbed.
And that’s all this was…this feeling of not being alone. I was just spooking myself.
Methodically, I shined my flashlight around the metal cabinets. Debris floated in the water. Pans, a stool, and various utensils which had survived over the years bobbed against the ceiling with the residual motion of whatever had displaced the water.
Or maybe just from my own movements.
No one could possibly be down here besides Coop, Nik, and me. Unless…Kai?
I continued scanning the room, my flashlight putting out a small glow over the surfaces. Scanning toward the main room, I shined my light into the dark opening I’d just come from. Floating in the murky water, I caught a glimpse of something nodding, like a head. Of course, it couldn’t be.
I shined my light directly at the strange object, which appeared human. Maybe a tattered life jacket covered in seaweed of some sort?
Transfixed, I waited for the entity to reveal itself. It appeared to rotate. Seaweed or hair? I couldn’t tell. Another stirring in the water shifted and turned it again. Cold fear trailed down my spine like a sharpened fingernail, and a deep body tremble followed behind it as an eyeless face stared back at me. I screamed, losing my rebreather mouthpiece and dropping my flashlight.
I scrambled to get the mouthpiece back in before losing too much oxygen from the closed-circuit system. Sinking down, I felt along the floor for my flashlight.
My fingertips brushed various debris as I searched blindly. I kept my eyes toward the galley where it opened to the great room. Not a body. No way it was a body. Unlike the protection the deep freeze offered, between the water erosion and the marine life, it wouldn’t take but a few days for a submerged body to disintegrate to the bones. They would’ve sunk to the floor and been gone by now too. Fearing my secrets would one day come up, I’d researched every scenario. No, the face had looked too pristine to even be someone who might’ve been down at the wreck weeks ago. Which ruled out anyone who’d been scouting the wreck last month before the storm hit.
It had probably been nothing. My own guilt spooking me. A trick of the mind. Some seaweed, a fish, or something which looked like hair and a face. Ears and nose.
Okay. Breathe. Think.
Whatever it was, might not have looked like Coop or Nik. But logic prevailed. It was dark, really dark, and there was a lot of debris in the water. One of them had to have come to check up on me and maybe I’d just panicked and my imagination had gotten the better of me. I pressed my comms. “Coop, Nik—are either of you inside the ship, by chance?”
“Negative, Presh. We’re still on the bow, cutting one of those circles Wile E. Coyote-style. You need anything?”
“Kai? You still up top? Alone?”
“Yes, ma’am. What’s going on?”
“Probably nothing. I’ll be headed out soon.”
My fingers brushed against the flashlight and I scrambled with both hands to grab it. Sharp pain sliced through my left hand just as my right clasped the handle.
Shit. The cut immediately caught fire with the sting and singe of saltwater. I blinked the piercing tears away as I toggled the flashlight back on and pointed it down at the burning pain in my palm. Sure enough the skin was slit wide and leaking a river of red. I pressed my hand tight to my side, attempting to hold pressure as I scanned the room with the flashlight.
I didn’t imagine strange human body parts this time, just the tail fin of a large shark. And it definitely wasn’t my imagination.
I schooled my fear. Then used my comms.
“Coop, Nik—be advised, it appears that nothing was a whole lotta female bull shark. I’m in the galley, port-side, mid-ship, deck two.” I flashed my light, scanning toward the main room and catching the gills on the shark’s side. “She’s making a few laps of the main room. I think I better hang here for a bit, see if she moves on.”
“Copy that,” Coop said. “Let us know if you need us.”
While I appreciated Coop not thinking my alert meant he needed to drop everything and rush to my rescue, I wouldn’t have hated on some good ol’ fashioned save the day heroics, either.
You’ve got this.I settled my thoughts and scanned for something to wrap my hand with to control the bleeding. All I could find was the deteriorated chef’s knife which had cut me in the first place. It gave me an idea.
I braced my back against a solid portion of the metal cabinetry and shoved my heels into the galley island to keep my buoyancy locked. Then I took out my own diving knife and carefully cut sections off the ankles of my wetsuit. Pausing every few seconds, I scanned the water above me and to my sides. The bull shark was nowhere to be seen, but cutting the makeshift wraps had sent streams of my blood into the water.
As quickly as I could, I coiled the neoprene around my palm. Then I twisted it into a knot tight enough to hold pressure on the wound and hopefully stem anymore blood loss. Flagging my good hand through the water, I tried to disperse the blood trails, or at least get them to flow away from me.
I needed to hurry and get back to the surface. I’d already compromised my oxygen levels thanks to losing my mouthpiece and now this. Focusing, I fished out a satchel charge similar to the explosives Coop and Nik had for clearing debris.
