Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser Page B

somewhere in the Metnál? The skeletal Kellers sitting around the breakfast table?
    Wrecked and tangled girders, twisted metal ladders, and coral were about all that connected the two pontoons now. All but an overturned farm tractor, which Thad guessed to be of World War II vintage, had been salvaged. Two of the boys from L.A. were trying to turn a tractor wheel, but it was stuck fast.
    Had Edward P. Alexander III been here? The name Metnál alone would lure an adventurer like Edward P.
    Maybe it was blood, heredity. Maybe that was what raised the gooseflesh on Edward P. Alexander III’s son as he followed his diving buddy along the sunken hulk, feeling the cold draft in the water over the hole in the pontoon, seeing shadow fish flit about in its dark interior. They came to the entrance in the coral canyon at the rear of the wreck, entered it. Thad wondered what it would feel like to die of suffocation. How hard would he struggle? Would he pray?
    Fish. Different colors and shapes for different strata. The bottom of this canyon was too deep for the eyes and light to fathom, but Thad had the impression of marine creatures he could not imagine rising to marvel at him, as a strange creature above. At the upper levels he saw the fish he’d seen within the reef. The bright yellow fish with black fins and black puckered “kissing” lips. The fish with markings resembling eyes near their tails that made them appear to swim backward.
    An instant of cold as a shadow passed over them, and they looked up to see a huge eagle ray “fly” sinuously overhead with a graceful rippling.
    The canyon became increasingly populated, but Harry turned, pointed to his dive watch, and gave a thumbs-up sign. Thad followed him back the way they’d come. They’d almost reached the end of the canyon when the current—which was ever trying to drive him against coral walls—lifted him suddenly over Harry, out into the open sea valley, and into a group of barracudas. They seemed as startled as he by the odd slamming noise and the new violence of the current—thrown against him one moment, swimming into him the next. Their slender bodies felt cool and dry against his bare legs, while the jacket of his father’s wet suit felt clammy.
    Harry-the-baker shot from the canyon as some of the barracudas appeared to be sucked into it lower down. Bizarre. As if there were two currents, one on top of the other and going in opposite directions, the one beneath a powerful undertow that Thad and the fish struggled to keep away from. Coral heads tumbled from canyon rims, expelling debris that looked like dust but was really tiny marine life and trapped air bubbles, much like skyscrapers might crumble in a disaster film. A vibration and a pressure in the water.
    Harry’s face mask began to fill with blood.
    Thad looked around for help but saw only rubber fins and air bubbles heading for the surface. Harry pulled off his mask to let the blood escape. Despite their fearsome reputations, the barracudas seemed not the least incited by the blood streaming from the diver’s nose. Thad pulled him to the surface slowly, allowing time for their bubbles to precede them and decompression to take place in their bodies.
    â€œHell, we’d about decided to come back for you.” Hands pulled his buddy away, and others helped him remove his fins and ascend the ladder.
    â€œHarry, stop bleedin’, you’ll attract every shark in the Metnál.”
    â€œSomebody throw a towel around that turkey’s face.”
    They soon had Harry stretched out on the shelf seat, wet towels under the back of his neck and under his nose. Bo and Aulalio Paz were counting heads. Greg Durwent sat down by his wife this time.
    â€œWhat happened down there?” Martha looked from her husband to Thad. “It sounded like a muffled … I don’t know. Whump? And the boat shivered.”
    â€œCould it a been an underwater