Created By by Richard Matheson

water. The cable is lowered. He firms mask against unshaven face. Looks at the chill expanse of Atlantic.
    The British Airways 747 is down there. Full of people who were watching a movie, having a snack when the missile amputated half a wing.
    Americans. Red-blooded innocents.
    Only half an hour ago.
    Maybe some are still alive. Managing on overhead masks. Struggling to live. Screaming under thousands of feet of icy water.
    Waiting for someone like Barek; an angel in tanks and fins to descend, bring salvation.
    He lets go of swinging cable, presses mask to face, drops into white-cap pewter.
    In VOICE-OVER, we HEAR his thoughts; an unsparing venom. General Garris had called. Asked for help. Army couldn’t be involved. No soldiers; only an independent. Someone with no ties to anything; anyone. Someone terrorists couldn’t get to; leverage.
    He swims deeper, the water aches; frigid gravity.
    When he gets these defenseless civilian pawns out, the next move is simple. He’ll go to whatever terrorist group did this and “rip their throats out. Hang them upside down and peel one foot of skin for every passenger who doesn’t get out alive.”
    He swims on, lower and lower, searchlight a glowing spear.
    Finally, sees it.
    A faintly blinking beacon.
    He swims toward it. Closer. Begins to make out enormous, dinosaur curves. The doomed shimmer of metal. The little windows with people behind; a horrid aquarium.
    Faces seem dead inside, hair floating in currents.
    Barek enters the drowning fuselage through a shorn emergency hatch. Inside, cabin lights still glow and passengers sit, held by seat belts. Magazines and food float. A little girl’s doll does a slow-motion cartwheel.
    All are dead.
    Barek’s VOICE-OVER takes in the saltwater morgue, as he slowly swims toward the rear of the 747, passing dead travelers who stare ahead; features puffy, skin clay-white.
    Barek’s professionalism corrodes.
    “I hate this fucking job. The stupid, needless death Ihave to see. Greed and politics turn people into goddamned animals.”
    He stops, braking with palms.
    A little dead boy, clutching his mother, is seated beside the aisle. Barek looks at the little boy. Brings thickly gloved fingers, wrapped in insulating rubber, to the child’s eyes. Closes them. Then, notices the boy’s throat has been cut. The mother’s, too. The blood has been cleansed by sea. Barek doesn’t understand.
    Swims on.
    Shines his beam on other faces; necks. Many have been cut, violently slashed. Dangling masks have been sliced away from air hoses; beheaded.
    “What the fuck happened here?” we HEAR him say. “Mass suicide?”
    He swims on, hands pushing aside millions of gallons of sea. The beam zigzags from death mask to death mask, as he creeps toward the rear.
    He passes on old priest, who seems to be staring at him, and Barek gasps as the man’s arms reach out, grab him! Barek stares in shock as the man looks at him pleadingly, body filled with water, oxygen mask expired.
    Barek quickly offers his own mouthpiece and the priest’s gulping features suckle.
    “Breathe!” Barek screams, in VOICE-OVER.
    The man looks at him with terrified eyes, gripping Barek’s hand. But his grip weakens, his eyes seek rest.
    “No!” Barek shakes the man, forcing him to breathe, not giving up. But the eyes shut, the mouthpiece slips out; jerking, writing nonsense on water.
    Barek finds the man’s Bible tucked in the elasticizedseatback pouch, places it in the man’s jacket, near his heart. Closes the priest’s eyes.
    Drifts on, toward the jet’s rear.
    Near the galley, he struggles to open the bathroom door that’s squeezed in its jam by water pressure.
    Stops.
    Hears bubbles from inside; a faint seepage.
    “Someone’s alive,” we HEAR him whisper, listening hard for secretions of life; a trapped survivor.
    He pulls harder; it feels welded.
    He begins to pry with his survival knife, shiny serrations chewing door edge. Finally, the lock breaks and it