Hunted From Below

Hunted from Below

by Michael Shimek

It followed us. We all knew it. The moment it plucked Sabrina from the raft, we knew it was stalking us. A giant mountain lion hunting for its prey in the forest, where the forest was the claustrophobic openness of the ocean and the mountain lion was…whatever lurked in the depths beneath our flimsy raft.

"But Harry, I'm hungry." The last word was drawn out like a whining child—they belonged to an adult woman.

"Vivian, we have to ration our food. We don't know how long we'll be stuck on this raft."

The snooty woman glared at the man who held a matching wedding ring. She huffed once and then turned her head to the vast blueness of their surroundings, pouting in silence. The man rolled his eyes and then stared out to sea in the opposite direction. The couple was certainly a pair. Dressed in clothes worth more than most people earn in a week, the two did nothing but bicker over the most trivial of subjects: her frizzy hair, his business meetings, who would take care of their Mastiff while on their next trip to Paris.

I wish they had been taken instead of Sabrina, I thought and so desperately wanted to say. I kept my mouth shut, enjoying the serene quiet that could so easily be interrupted by our predator.

Waves lapped the side of the boat. Luckily, the day was grey and dreary, unlike the scorching heat that had left us all burnt and dehydrated the day before; we had a few bottles of water, but rain would be a cool welcome. The day was solemn, just like the five survivors of Regal Crown's first disastrous and fatal voyage.

Timothy Ricker sat on one side of the raft. Ever so hopeful, the young crewmember's once perched position now slumped against the edge, the binoculars still ready in hand. He was a good kid. He had once told me a fabulous tale involving an elf, fairy, and fantasy world over a weeklong trek, and it was amazing; he told me he secretly wanted to be a writer, and he should be with his imagination. A lowly busboy, eagerness and excitement on traveling the open ocean always stained his face; now it was filled with sorrow, resent, and fear. Instead of watching for passing ships and planes, his eyes darted across the surface of the water, any movement triggering his attention.

Teri Trint, whom I barely knew (and I knew almost everyone who had worked aboard the small cruise liner), sat on another side of the raft, mostly away from everyone else, immersed in a copy of Mary Shelley's classic horror novel, Frankenstein. She was always a reserved woman, keeping to herself even when others poked and prodded. I had learned to keep my distance after the short, one-word answers I received when first introducing myself a few years back. She was a pretty woman, even if the maid outfit didn't allow for much pizazz.

I was stationed as a barrier between Tim and the couple, who had immediately taken to berate the boy for anything and everything. As one of the ship's security officers, everyone seemed to obey my authority status, even when the ship and its rules were no longer a concern.

"Mr. Urick, you might want to look at this."

My eyes, along with three other pairs, followed Tim's dead gaze and pointed finger. I would forever remember that terrifying moment when I spotted the object under the water.

A navy blue blob drifted in the wide expanse of the Persian blue ocean. No farther than the space needed for an airplane to take off, it hung in the water like a giant ink spill. It was as large, if not larger, than the ship that had sunk and put us in such an unfortunate position. For the first several minutes, we mimicked its behavior by remaining perfectly still. No one moved. No one said anything. Fright claimed our bodies and used them to create perfect statues of meaty bait for our stalker.

The dark spot moved toward the raft. Vivian gasped. Harry held his wife. Tim curled up against the edge. Teri put her book down and peered closer. As scared as I was, I copied Teri and leaned out for a closer look; I was intrigued at what type of behemoth held tentacles as thick as a redwood tree—fat, purple tentacles laden with barbed points that had already ripped one of us to shreds. It glided effortlessly through the water. When the creature was only a stones throw away, people panicked.

Vivian, Harry, and Tim backed away from the edges and huddled in the middle of the raft. Teri kept perfectly still, her eyes never wavering. I backed up a bit, but kept ready. With the only weapon on board, I clutched the flare gun with bone-white knuckles.

The dark shape swam closer and closer. It enveloped our small, inflatable vessel as we floated helplessly above. We were nothing but an orange speck compared to its monstrous size. The dark spot receded, diving deep but staying in line with our location.

A collected sigh of relief escaped everyone's lips.

"That was close," Tim said.

"What are we going to do?" Harry asked, cradling her hysterical wife. "We can't just sit here and wait to become fish food. We can't just wait for that shitty cruise company to get off their lazy asses and save us, which should have happened the moment that pathetic excuse for a boat sank—don't you go thinking there won't be a lawsuit involved when this is all over." He glared at me with his last comment.

"Let's just calm down," I said. "We have to go about this rationally. Right now, the best thing we can do is wait until we are found."

"Are you serious?" If he could, I was sure the older gentleman was about to stand on the wobbly surface. "That's your best advice? If we don't do anything, all they are going to find is an empty and bloody raft."

"You saw the size of that thing," I said. "What's your plan, hotshot? We are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, on a survival raft no larger than the size of a child's bedroom. We have this measly, little flare gun, and although I wouldn't be apposed to using it for self-defense, I would prefer to save it for a passing ship or plane. Besides, I'm pretty sure a flare wouldn't hurt something that large, only enrage it further."

"I'd listen to him, if I were you," Tim said. "Mr. Urick is a smart man, and I've seen him beat a pro wrestler in arm wrestling before."

I wouldn't say I was smart, and the wrestler was actually a retired professional wrestler who had been well beyond his glory days of muscular and fit, but I nodded thanks to Tim. The man bowed his head in humiliated obedience. I was right, and he knew it. We were no match for the sea monster, and as if to prove my point, it attacked without warning.

A tremendous force rammed the raft from below. It skyrocketed up and all of us along with it. I clung on for dear life, but when the petite and lightweight boat reached its peak and began its downward plummet, it whipped about like a leaf in a gust of wind. My hands burned as they were ripped from my death grip on the rope that lined the raft. I went flying. Blues and greys swirled by. I caught a quick glimpse of the monster's black outline before crashing into the frigid water. I panicked and swam for dear life; I had no idea if anyone else could swim, nor did I care. Reaching the raft was my main objective, and if it were a race, I would have set a world record first place. After climbing aboard, I helped Teri and Harry up as they claimed second and third place. Unfortunately, no more places would be given that day.

The three of us screamed for Tim and Vivian to swim faster, faster, as the outline grew bigger beneath them. Tim was close, so close; I thought he was going to make it. I reached out to grab him, but he was yanked under the water. Bubbles replaced his body, but then even the bubbles disappeared. "Tim!" I screamed, but I knew it was too late. My watery eyes darted to the woman. She was a bit farther out, but her arms and legs pumped vigorously against the salty ocean water. Her face was painted with fear, and she had every right to be, for what happened next would make anyone question his or her sanity.

Like stubble on a man's face, thick, black sticks poked out of the water around Vivian. The sticks grew until they were long, wispy stalks of hair. A scream erupted in the air. The ever-growing tendrils aimed on the sound and shot toward the screaming swimmer. Her arms and legs thrashed one last time as the black snakes slammed into her body. Vivian vanished in a spray of frothy red.

"Vivian?" Harry's face was a cross between shock and uncertainty. "Vivian!" he screamed at the water. I had to hold him back from jumping overboard as we watched the ebony stalks thin and shrink beneath the surface.

The monster was gone, leaving the raft and everyone on board to rock with the rolling waves of the mighty ocean.

And then there were three.

#

"I don't think it has a definitive shape." With her book gone, Teri had resorted to staring aimlessly out at the cruel and mysterious sea. She would occasionally blurt out thoughts through her caked lips, theories about our predator. With Harry mumbling crazy, incoherent fragments in the background, she was the last link to a civil conversation. "I think it can change into whatever it wants."

I was curious. "What do you mean?"

She never turned her head from the darkening horizon. "The sea is full of mysteries. The human species has only explored about 5% of the world's oceans. Who is to say what's down there? Why does everything have to fit within a certain mold, with barriers created by our definition? There is so much more than what our inferior minds can imagine."

I digested her words carefully. I wasn't a creative person; I wasn't a thinker. I had an open mind, but she was definitely right: my mind couldn't fathom a creature outside the realm of society's stalled collected imagination. I slumped against the edge, joining her somber gaze.

Our hunter returned just as the last sliver of orange descended below the skyline. It discarded its large and massy shape and took on a longer, stretched out version that seemed to float for miles as it circled and passed. When darkness blanketed the sky, it taunted us with a vibrant display of dancing colors from all sides of the rainbow. I fell asleep that night to the mesmerizing flashes, fear of death always lingering in my thoughts.

When I woke the next morning, only two of us remained.

#

I had spent the entire morning trying to learn more about Teri's disappearance, but it was to no avail. She was simply gone. The monster could have snatched her during the night, or she could have easily slipped over the edge sometime while we slept, possibly to escape an even worse death than at the hands of our stalker. Either way, there was no sign she was ever even on the raft to begin with.

That left two of us, one of whom was a useless, bumbling idiot. My hopes for survival were thin. I was sure to die on that raft, or dragged kicking and screaming to my end in the abyss below. The rations were gone, the flare gun was gone, all optimism was gone, and the only thing left to do was wait for the sweet release from the torment of a certain death.

It returned when the sun was high. Harry, oblivious to his surroundings, baked in the heat, his skin blistering with the direct sunlight. Using what little cloth I could find, I managed to cover most of my skin from the harsh ultraviolet rays. Peeking through tiny slits every so often, I sighted the shadow under the moving glare of the blinding sun.

It floated aimlessly nearby, a large patch of dark seaweed suspended in the bright blue ocean. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into eternity. About to pass out from weariness and dehydration, I spotted movement. I cowered below the raft's edge, becoming one with the rubbery surface, hoping to hide from the creature's sight. Harry never noticed the shadow rise from the water.

The bulbous monster rose higher and higher until it towered over our tiny, pathetic raft. My position from under the curve of the edge hid me from most of its gruesome grotesqueness, but I saw enough to turn any character's hair in a horror novel or movie white from fright. Gaping mouths opened to razor sharp teeth, many as large as a small vehicle. There were no eyes, only thousands of feelers that ended in the shapes of human hands. As those feelers extended and those hands crawled closer, I stifled a scream. Harry turned around, stared wide-eyed, mumbled something incoherent, and then was torn to shreds by tiny little fingers, attached to tiny little hands, attached to one, giant leviathan that gobbled up his remains in its numerous, chomping mouths. When the man was gone, the creature retreated back under the surface.

Little pieces of Harry littered the raft.

I never moved. If I don't move, it will think I am dead and then leave the raft and me alone, I thought. It was wise thinking, playing possum until the predator became uninterested, but the monster was just as canny. It waited me out. Between my bouts in and out of consciousness, I could sense it loitering under the water; I could sometimes feel it brush up against the underside of the raft—knowing that such a thin veil separated me and that hideous beast gave me the shivers.

That night, when I was sure the cruel elements of nature would due me in rather than any demon from Hell, it made its move.

It bumped up against the bottom of the raft. A soft whine escaped my lips. The tiny vessel rose into the air. The surface of the ocean disappeared and the rocking motion was replaced with a smooth, sailing ascent. I was sure to reach the single, menacing cloud that had developed in the night sky, but the upward movement stopped. If it were daytime, I would have been able to see for miles, but the dark night hindered my view and even shaded out whatever held me in the air; all I could see was a large and wet mound under my boat.

For a moment, nothing happened. I laid in curled silence against the rubber material of the raft, waiting for the end, praying for it to be quick and painless. The anticipation was agony.

They appeared slowly, one by one. The first one was Tim. The sad, transparent face stared at me with despondent eyes. I didn't recognize the second, or the third, or the fifth. Harry appeared in the mob somewhere as clear and floating pieces, a puzzle put together by someone who didn't care. Vivian was by his side, a huge, ragged hole punctured through her abdomen. The crowd of ghosts grew until the raft overflowed with apparent victims. It wasn't until I saw Teri phase through the audience of specters that I started screaming.

She inched closer and closer. Her disfigured body reeked of seaweed and salt. Her eyes glowed a vicious ruby red. A rand reached out. I screamed and backed away, closing my eyes from my sealed fate. An icy vice wrapped my wrist.

Darkness and evil claimed me as I screamed into oblivion.

#

I woke up crying, shrieking, and thrashing in a hospital room. Nurses rushed in to calm me down and administer drugs. I struggled against their subduing efforts, but my muscles relaxed and numbness took over. The rapid beeping from the machines faded, and so did my confusion and fright.

I was safe. I was no longer at the mercy of the wide, open sea and its mysterious monster. Somehow, I had survived. Somehow, out of one hundred thirty-four crewmembers and three hundred sixty-eight registered passengers, I alone had survived.

I wasn't the only one to wonder about this improbability. Nurses, doctors, and several authority figures berated me with questions about the incident. They wanted to know what had happened to the ship, they wanted to know what had happened to everyone else on board, and they wanted to know why there was blood on the raft when there wasn't a single open wound on my body.

My answers received angry and disappointed faces. There was only one reply I could give: "I don't know." Although, that was not true for the last inquiry; I knew exactly why Harry's blood stained the survival boat.

The questioning didn't end until I feigned pain and sickness. Those demanding answers promised to return at a later time, when I was feeling more apt to not fall ill. I was left in a drug-induced haze. Tubes and wires plugged into my body like I was part machine. A steady rhythm of beeps and whirs from the electronics echoed in the small room.

The sound of muffled, running water arose from behind the closed door of the bathroom. A voice followed: "Join us."

Starting at the heel of my feet, Death traced the tip of his scythe along my skin until it reached the back of my neck.

The door creaked open. The taste of salt in the air settled in my mouth. There was no light, but the silhouette of a woman stood in the doorway. She shimmered like flowing water. A pool of liquid grew with every splat-splat-splat at her feet.

It was Teri.

She smiled at me with those dull, red eyes.

I screamed and screamed. Even as the nurses rushed into the room and pumped more drugs into my system, I couldn't stop screaming. The sea and its secrets always claimed its victims, and it had finally secured my sanity.

END