Leviathan The yacht bobbed gently on the water, the tide making hollow lapping sounds as it splashed against the hull with each rhythmic rise and fall. Seen from a distance, it was a picture of tranquility, the sunrise refracting off the surface of the water sending cascading ribbons of light dancing across the vessel from stern to bow.

"What do you think their problem is?" The woman lowered her binoculars and turned to her husband, the captain of their small commercial diving ship.
"I haven't the slightest, I've been hailing them for an hour on the radio, and haven't heard back yet." There was a long pause, and then, "I'm not entirely sure that it's a problem on their end, though, Day." Dayna Starnes had gone back to her study of the yacht, and didn't bother lowering her binoculars to reply to her husband.
"What are you saying, Chris?"
"Well, when I first spotted her, you were down on the diving deck with the clients. After they didn't respond to the first couple calls, I tried the harbor."
"Chris..." Dayna trailed off, sounding irate.
"What!" Chris shouted, "Are you fucking serious? I know what you're thinking, and I am not calling in our divers and heading back to port because of some goddamn radio... Thing." Dayna said nothing, but looked at her husband sternly. "See, you know it too. We need this dive. It's been a slow season, and high rollers like this don't come along every day. You think Mr. Wall Street and his trophy wife down there are going to be happy if we pull anchor and head out after fifteen minutes? No. Just go down to the diving deck and check in with Lee. Pretend we never had this conversation, and I'll worry about what's going on up here."
"Aye-aye, captain asshole." Dayna saluted, and made her way toward the lower deck.
Chris gave a single finger salute to his wife's turned back and mumbled "Bitch," as soon as he was sure she was out of earshot.

Dayna Lacrosse, Chris Starnes, and Lee Campbell met six years prior as diving instructors, and a mutual love of diving as well as a plan for financial independence brought the three together. Pooling their resources, the trio of diving instructors bought their own boat and began a professional guided diving business. Less than a year later, Chris Starnes asked Dayna to marry him. Five years later, the business had not made them all any richer. On top of it all, the stress of working together on a daily basis, coupled with all the things Dayna and Chris didn't know about each other before tying the knot, contributed to the couple's mutual animosity toward each other. Dayna and Chris enjoyed a love/hate relationship that was often skewed toward the hate side, but remained together due to their commitment to the business and the financial impossibility of continuing to dive for a living in the event of a divorce.
Once she had made it to the diving station, Dayna leaned into the microphone and pressed the red transmit button that communicated to the lead divers earpiece, "Hey sexy," she breathed in a sultry voice, "I'm so lonely up here without you."
"Dayna, quit that shit," Came the reply from the speaker, "there's a time and place, and work is neither."
"Sorry Lee, I'm just sick of Chris' attitude. Anyway, I'm supposed to check on our clients, how they doing?"
"Switch to general channel and you can ask them yourself, this guy's kind of a racist pig."

There was a soft click as the communicator channel switched. Dayna put on her best fake smile, knowing that it came through in her voice, and chirped into the microphone. "Hi guys, how we doing down there?"
"We'd be a hell of a lot better if your monkey would quit following us around. We're both certified divers, we don't need a third wheel."
"I'm sorry Mr. Miers," Dayna replied, "It's part of our business license, we have to have one of our instructors in the water with the clients at all times."
"Well does your license say he has to be swimming right up my ass?"
"I'll see what I can do, sir, my apologies."
"Fucking-a right, your apologies. Just tell him to leave me alone."
"Yes sir." Dayna switched off the general channel and sighed, why were all the rich ones such complete assholes? She pressed the red button for the direct channel to Lee again. "Lee-"
"Fuck you, Dayna, you heard that guy. You're such a kiss-ass."
"He pays our salaries, Lee. What's his problem anyway?"
"There's some kind of cave down here, and I've never seen it before. The thing's a mystery, a goddamn enigma, and Wall Street wants to swim right in. Pardon me for being smart and safe."
"Lee, you're not gonna like this but-"
"Bullshit! Not on my shift he's not gonna-"
"LEE! This guy is paying us a lot of money to do whatever he wants down there."
"And if he wants to risk his life and his wife's?"
"There's nothing saying that's our liability. They want to go in, alone, let them do it. All you're required to do is be in the water with him. He signed the waiver. Shit, at least if he dies he can't stop payment on the check."

Chris was on the top deck peering through Dayna's binoculars at the yacht on the horizon. He could clearly make out the vessel's name on the bow, The Leviathan. Who would name their boat that? At any rate, that was hardly the most disturbing thing he could make out. The boat had a slight tilt to it, for one, and that's something you really don't want in a boat, most especially an expensive yacht. As far as boats go, tilts are usually a pretty bad sign. The Leviathan also had some broken windows. Generally, if you had the money for a yacht, you didn't scrimp on window repair before taking it out on the water. He still couldn't see any movement on deck, either, and he could clearly see that it wasn't missing a single dinghy or even a life preserver. Just what the fuck happened on that yacht? Chris set down the binoculars and picked back up the handpiece for his marine band radio and depressed the call switch. "Leviathan this is Liquid Sunshine, commercial vessel about a hundred yards off your starboard. Do you require assistance? Over." Chris breathed hard out of his nose then depressed the call switch again. "Leviathan, this is Liquid Sunshine, just what the fuck is going on over there!" Still no reply. Chris sat down in his chair and exhaled heavily, running a hand through his hair, he had a really bad feeling about this. Again, Chris held down the call button, "Leviathan, this is-"
Suddenly, Dayna screamed "CHRIS! Get down here!"

"I'm telling you, some... Thing slashed her open! We've got to get the hell out of here! Mary, oh my God, Mary...!" Steve Miers was wild eyed and shaking, and with good reason. Mary Miers was laying on the diving deck holding onto the faintest illusion of life. Her intestines, clearly ruptured and visible through the gaping hole in her diving suit, were doing their best to betray the illusion. Chris was in shock, staring at Mary Miers as Dayna desperately threw open the first aid kit and started thrashing around inside. Chris highly doubted she'd find anything in there to adequately deal with Mary's predicament.
"Call for help, Chris, quick!" Lee shouted at him.
"Jesus! The radio... I think something's wrong with the radio... I... Lee, what happened here?" Lee was pacing the deck, shaking his head and clenching his fists. He turned at the sound of Chris's voice and pointed at Steve.
"Ask HIM what the fuck happened! I should have known better... Swims right down to it, 'oh look, a cave!' Won't let me go in with him. I wasn't gonna let him go in alone, but Dayna-"
"Don't you DARE put this on me, Lee!" Dayna screamed, placing a cold compress on the wound, basically Mary's entire abdomen, and pressing down. Mary immediately began vomiting blood, causing Dayna to vomit all over her hands and down into Mary's wound. Steve's eyes bulged, and he quickly ran to the diving platform and began to heave into the water.
"Hell of a cover story, though!" Lee half-shouted, waving his arms emphatically. "Should have seen it a mile away! Not only no witnesses, but waiver or not, he's gonna try to make this our liability, just watch!" Dayna looked up at Chris from Mary with tears in her eyes.
"We've got to get back in to port, I'll pull anchor..." She got up and ran towards the bow. Steve Miers finished expelling his expensive breakfast and turned to face Lee with a look of disbelief, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Steve's gaze shifted from Lee, down to Mary, up to Chris.
"Did he just seriously suggest what I think he did?"
"Calm down, both of you," Chris interjected, "Mr. Miers, you have to admit that regardless of my friend's tactless approach, the burden of proof lies with you. Why don't you explain to us exactly what happened down there."
"I told you, there was some... Creature..." Steve trailed off and Lee laughed.
"Right, like a stingray? Where's your diving knife you sick fuck!"
"If I had one I'd kill you, you fucking nigger!" Steve shouted at Lee, who promptly punched him in the face so hard that he fell back into the railing and flipped over, hitting the back of his head against the side of the boat before flapping hard into the water, face down.
"LEE!" Chris shouted.
"Oh for fuck's sake, you can't say that guy didn't have it coming! Let him drown."
"You heard how hard his head hit, you'd better hope he gets amnesia or something. Get your ass down there and get him, quick." Lee glared hard at Chris, then grabbed a life preserver and jumped off the dive platform.

"Don't ask me, Chris, all I know is that I nearly burned the winch out trying to reel it in."
"Shit. Ok, I'm going up to the top deck to check the sonar, We've got to get out of here one way or another." Chris started walking toward the steps to the captains deck and stopped short at the equipment locker. Within seconds, he found what he was looking for. He thought he'd never use the damn thing. Just before closing the locker, Steve Miers dive bag caught his eye. He grabbed the mesh bag and pulled out Miers' thick brown billfold.

In the captains cabin, Chris checked the engine and hoist motor gauges in the cabin, and saw that the anchor hoist was most definitely red lining.
"Chris!" Dayna shouted, poking he head into the cabin, "Mary's gone, and where the hell are Lee and Miers?" Chris descended the stairs to the dive deck two at a time and observed a bloody trail from the spot where Mary Miers had been lying to the dive platform. He took the spear gun that he had gotten from the equipment locker off of his shoulder and handed it to his wife. "What the hell is this for?" Dayna asked.
"I found something inside Miers' dive bag, Day. I'm not sure what it means yet, but if you see him, shoot first and ask questions later." Dayna gave him a look that seemed full of questions. "Don't worry about it for now, I've got to find Lee." And with that, he dived into the water.

Dayna climbed up the stairs to the captains cabin and went to Chris' station. Miers brown leather billfold was lying open, next to the marine band radio. Dayna picked it up and looked inside. Next to Steve Miers' identification card was a captains license, and a marine vessel registration for the Leviathan. "Oh Shit." Dayna said, primed the spear gun and ran down the stairs to the dive deck.

Chris Starnes had swum no more than twenty feet when he could see that the ship's anchor had been neatly hooked on a rock outcropping near the cave's entrance. He was going to need his regulator to get to that depth. Chris turned around to swim back to the Liquid Sunshine, when he saw that there were two bodies hooked to the anchor chain, one male, one female. Chris kicked as hard as he could, trying to make it back to the surface. Breeching the waters surface and grabbing hold of the dive platform's bottom rung, Chris squinted into the bright noon sunlight and screamed "DAY!"
"Chris," Dayna replied from directly over him. Chris wiped the water from his brow and used his hand to shade the glare from his eyes. Miers was standing right behind her!
"Day, it's Miers, he-" Dayna leveled the speargun directly at him, and then there was a searing pain in his neck and right shoulder. Chris found that he no longer had the strength to hold onto the platform's ladder, and began to slip into the water. He tried to swim but found it impossible to move his left arm, and he simply flailed in the water, exhausting himself and breathing in water. He let out a gurgling cry that tried desperately to be Day, but lacked even the crudest enunciation.

The last thing Chris Starnes saw as he sank below the water and the world became a wavy blur of fading color was Steve Miers holding on to Dayna, as she wrapped her arms around him.  ¶ 7:37 PM 2 comments