The Stone Scry Page 4

  The Hunters: Master Hunter — Spotter (hunter or elite soldier) — Guardian (soldier or peace officer)

  Dear Mom,

  I hope this letter finds you quickly. I lost the last post to a band of jackers. They hit our transits further south every year. We do not know how they are getting weapons or where their ranks come from. Abu Zaid thinks the Canadians are trying to cut off our routes and corner the water trade—I know not what to think.

  Anyway, I wanted to let you know I am ok. I still dive. Local tribes demand octopi for food, so I hunt eights with my tribe. We hunt in specific rotations to make sure we are not impacting their population, but so many nutrients wash into the ocean from flooding, the rotations are overkill. Problem is, octopi seem to be taking on the role of an apex predator. They wipe out large swaths of reef life unchecked. Also, we do not see as many sharks as we used to. I caught sight of some basking sharks two weeks ago, an impossible sight years ago, but whites have not been migrating up the coast like they used to. The sand tigers are still plentiful and sometimes help us corner the eights. When tiger sharks and hammerheads show up, we clear out until they finish, but the big tigers frequent our territory less than when I first dove the coast.

  A new shark is crashing the party, aggressive as hell. We had to kill one last month before it overtook us. Tasted horrible. You would not believe this, Mom, it was thirty feet in length. Maybe thirty-five! We call them biggens. They look just like a great white only with sandstone colored eyes and a massive girth—I mean massive.

  How is Dad? Rumors are creeping into Wilmington that swamp stompers inducted him into their field operations. I have heard some bad stories; I hope they are not real. At least he is getting out of the lab now, right? Please let him know I am in good shape and miss both of you. Hopefully, if the jackers ease off in Fayetteville, we can cut a path to reconnect Raleigh. Then I will see you guys.

  Love you and miss you both,

  Sam

  Chapter 3

  A small, white boat chopped up and down over waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Salty water sprayed Sam Mason’s face from the little boat slamming through three-foot swells. Before the Wash, tourists used the boat for recreational dives, visiting shipwrecks off the Carolina coast. Charters packed in eager paying divers to catch a glimpse of the excursion’s star players: sand tigers, loggerheads, skates and 400-pound groupers. Sam’s tribe, the Divers, converted scuba boats for hunting octopi.

  Sam wedged into a small diver chair and started slinging on gear. Over his shoulder, Master Hunter Lester O’Connell yelled out from the captain’s deck, “Spotters! Gear up.”

  During the Wash, people fled inland as the Atlantic dragged beach cities into its stomach, leaving the rotted corpses of Wilmington and the Outer Banks behind for tribal decomposers. The tribes repurposed shopping malls with connecting plankways, sunk pylons into deserted homes to build tribal dwellings, and repaired boats for navigating the deltas and fishing the coastline ledges. Being one of the largest tribes, the Divers rebuilt Wilmington using bare hands and driftwood and turned it into the model example of a lost utopia.

  Next to Sam griped Shaquan White, “That fool’s taking us over the Hyde again. God damn him.” He leaned over to check Sam’s gauge.

  Each ensured the other’s buoyancy control device weights were firm, counted and secured dive knives, and tested airflow for cleanliness. Meticulous and systematic, like his dad before running an experiment, Sam and his fellow spotters eliminated variables to achieve a successful hunt or productive patrol. Scientists of the sea.

  “He said we cleaned twenty-three-mile ledge of eights,” Sam said. “Man, you know why he does not want to go there, right?”

  “Yeah, jerk is afraid of biggens.” Shaquan cocked his dartergun and checked Sam’s. “You get the letter out to your mom?”

  O’Connell killed the engine upon arriving at the wreck marker, dropping the buzz saw noise for quiet lapping.

  “I gave it to him,” Sam replied, the engine’s roar still in his ears. He asked across the center deck to Abu Zaid, “Hey, did you get my letter out?”

  Abu responded while checking Juan Delgado’s gauge, “I did. Gave it to Chen. They’re making a run to the Danvers tribe.”

  Shaquan said, “They connected with Raleigh last week. She’ll get your letter, Sammy.”

  Sam was relieved. His tribe struggled to keep communication routes open in the network. His father, Tom Mason, worked on projects for weeks without time off. Picturing his mother staring out a window into a gloom of frozen rain, he worried she would remove herself from the world. His insides twisted.

  “Alright, listen up.” O’Connell barked while slapping on gear, “Delgado, this is your first deep run, so you hang back with Zade and Mason.”

  Sam shook his head and snickered, hearing his friend’s name mispronounced.

  O’Connell continued, “Keep your weight centered and your eyes wide. I do not want any biggens crashing our party.”

  “What the hell?” Shaquan exclaimed, stood up and stumbled against the guardrail. “You want me to do wreck scatter again? Have Abu do it this time.”

  “You did a good job on the last run, Shaquan. I will watch your tail.”

  “Whatever, they’re as good as me down below in the hunt.”

  “You are on wreck scatter, White. That is an order.”

  Shaquan adjusted his BC and mocked, “Yes sir, master hunter sir. I aim’s to please, Master.”

  “Knock it off, White!”

  “Knock what off, master hunter sir? I just be doing what’s I been told.”

  The others chuckled. O’Connell’s face changed beet red. “Don’t forget who’s watching your ass, Shaquan.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry, Master, I know exactly who be watching my behind.” He turned to Sam and winked.

  “And what a sexy behind it is, White,” Sam quipped.

  Sporting a big grin, Shaquan flipped the bird to Sam and long-stepped into the deep blue.

  Abu, Sam, and Shaquan were already close friends when the Divers formed and grew even closer after joining. Because Shaquan did not know how to dive at the time, the elder made him a rat catcher—the glamorous name given to repair and maintenance tribe members. Rat catchers were the lowest in the contractor chain of command.

  Having little in common with the other contractors, the separation from his friends impelled Shaquan into isolation. He lashed out at the other contractors and showed up to work drunk. Fearful of their dear friend’s downward spiral, Abu and Sam stepped in and taught him how to dive. Quick mastery of the skill and friends reunited, elements came together making Shaquan one of the most excellent divers in the tribe.

  Sam, in typical character, complained to O’Connell that he was wasting Shaquan’s skills by chasing eights out shipwrecks, referred to as wreck scatter. The master hunter’s response brought Sam’s view of O’Connell even lower if that were possible, “He kicks too hard. While he shoots eights, the rest of us are covered in bottom dust.” Sam knew it was a crap excuse. The team always spread out fifteen meters before spearing the eights; they had ample time to bag octopi before visibility went to zero. The ugly truth was that while the Wash changed many things, racism continued rearing its blistering head.

  The men glided into formation three meters down around a safety stop bar that hung off the boat. They dropped another twenty through a comfortable thermocline and shifted to neutral buoyancy. Large schools of shad swirled around them. Great barracuda floated in trailing their fins as the spotters spread out around the old Hyde dredge wreck. Schools of enormous amberjack circled the wreck’s reef-like edge, angelfish and wrasse guarded nooks hiding their nests, and rock bass stood motionless on their bony fins nearby eying the spotters.

  Abu motioned to a large, gaping hole in the stern. Letting the air out their BCs, they drifted further down, shifted in a strong ocean current, and readied darterguns.

  Sam spotted Shaquan above the wreck and flashed his dive light. The
returned signal prompted him to aim his dartergun at the hole’s mouth. Shaquan’s descent into the wreck gave Sam a chance to briefly check his wrist computer and gauge.

  2500 psi, plenty of air.

  Within minutes, scores of octopi raced out the hole. Sam ignored his fluttering heart and squeezed the dartergun trigger, sending a stream of lined darts into massing colors fluctuating between wreck-reef purple, olive drab, and tan splotches. A storm of bottom sand drew up in the frenzied eights’ wake mixing oil and blood. Strafing right, he fired off the rest of his dart line into the eight-legged stampede. The maneuver shifted his mask, letting in a steady stream of water. He tilted his head back and cleared the mask, then repositioned it.

  Then he felt a tug on his arm.

  A tugging sensation could be a shark nip or loose fishing line, surging diver anxiety. Sam had enough dives logged to know it was neither. Most likely, it was Juan, an inexperienced diver.

  Growing up during the Wash hardened Juan Delgado. Accustomed to large animals and rabid humans seeking to kill and eat him, he was not frightened easily.

  Something was wrong.

  Juan’s eyes were as wide as his mask. He made a hand signal no spotter wanted; his fingers pointed upward in a finned shape and waved side to side.

  Shark.

  Not a nurse shark or sandbar shark. They were docile and rarely interfered. Not a tiger or great white, Sam judged by Juan’s fingers flailing about. On the surface, the larger shark species might try a test-bite, but beneath the surface, divers were loud, smelly, strange-looking creatures to be left alone.

  Juan pointed to the top of the wreck’s hull. Surroundings cloaked in a mist of oily sand, Sam saw no caudal fin, snout or dorsal fin. A giant shadow then glided through the particulate. Distinct, torpedo-shaped, and thirty-feet long. A biggen had arrived, drawn in by the intense fray of electric signals. It searched the wreck for dart-pierced eights reeking of blood.

  Abu, tracing the figure, yanked out a twenty-inch hunting knife and shouldered his dartergun.

  Sam unholstered a watercannon, keeping a firm grip on his dartergun draw handle. Fear turned to anger, knowing he had to cut loose his catch. Food that would feed families for a week. Pressing a small button, he detached the dart line and watched ensnared octopi drift off into the fog, wrapping around each other and tied in knots by the current.

  Sand tigers drawn in by the ruckus chomped away with glee at scattering eights. The welcomed helpers of the hunt, incredibly useful for cornering amberjacks, Sam for an instant felt elated by their approach. But they, too, were in danger. All he could do was watch in anger as the biggen targeted one of the poor sand tigers and throttled forward, mouth wide open. The wretched biggen bit down snapping it in half. Sand tiger eyes stared into the void as its head floated to the bottom.

  A fresh batch of revenge blended into Sam’s anger at nature’s opprobrium. His fins flurried racing towards the giant shark, with Abu speeding behind covering his flank. Before it could react to the approaching Spotters, Sam’s .50 caliber bullets from his watercannon pelted its head. Its blood cascaded into the sea, forming a crimson shawl around the beast.

  Jerking right to avoid further harm, it forced Abu’s knife inward. Clinging to his dive knife, he sawed at the behemoth causing it to swing left and reposition, yanking the knife from his hand.

  Its glowing yellow eyes leered at Sam as it sped towards the wreck’s bow.

  Sam pushed Juan to Abu and motioned he was going for Shaquan, then shot down into the carcass of the ship. He avoided coral bones protruding out from the ship’s old wounds and entered the darkness of its cabin, then turned on the dive light and checked his gauge.

  1200 psi. Less than half a tank but enough air to search for his friend.

  Sam twisted the light back and forth in rapid ticks. The signal, used in times of imminent danger, risked attracting wild carnivores. He did not care, hoping to capture Shaquan’s attention.

  Ocean current thrust through a stairwell and shoved Sam into an adjoining hallway. He corrected, wedged his fins against the ceiling, and searched the darkness for a path to the cargo hold. A shard of corroded metal curled inward caught his hand, causing him to drop the dive light. His fingers raked up sand, trying to stop it from rolling down the stairwell and clenched together upon failing to recover it. Pitch black engulfed him. No time to worm through and find the light, time and air were running out.

  Onward he swam in the dark feeling mixed senses of jagged metal and slippery ledges until he spotted sunlight entering a portal. Eager to be free of the black sheet thrown over his head by the wreck’s bowels, he zipped through only to catch his tank on the portal’s rim. The collision pinged a soundwave tsunami across the metal wreckage.

  A shadow raced by, darkening the portal. The biggen.

  Every muscle spasming in fear, Sam slipped into a palsy on the silty floor. He imagined a giant nose smashing in and teeth extending outward picking at his suit, getting enough material to pull him out. Bitten in half, he would share the fate of his sand tiger comrade.

  The biggen swam onward. Exhaled bubbles collecting in the interior cabin reminded Sam to check the gage.

  900 psi. He had time. Not more than ten minutes, but enough to get Shaquan.

  Wiggling his shoulders through the portal, he slipped into a cargo bay riddled with holes from saltwater rot. Relaxing at the base sat Shaquan holding a large, speared rock bass.

  Even before Sam could sign danger, Shaquan unholstered his watercannon. He expected Sam not to be there. His frantic signs sent a message any diver would receive with a complimentary side order of crushing stress.

  Shaquan vomited into his regulator.

  Sam reloaded his watercannon and chambered a shot, fighting back trembling hands.

  Patting Shaquan’s shoulder and motioning upward, Sam led their rapid ascent. Out of the hold, into the dense soup of the hunt, their wrist computer alarms beeped screaming danger. Blind, wearing pulsing electronic gear, they flailed towards a lighter region of the cloud.

  Risk of the bends was not imminent at a depth of twenty-five meters. However, they could not ignore the chance of nitrogen bubbles forming in their arteries. Both men latched onto the safety bar of the scuba boat and began timing their stop.

  They had to wait five minutes. Sam checked his gauge. 400 psi.

  Shaquan signed having 500 psi left. Not enough to share on a secondary.

  Sam slowed his breathing. In. Out. Use your diaphragm, Sam concentrated. In. Out. Nice and slow. Watercannon readied, eyes glued to the wreck, he waited. Vengeance would be another day.

  Four minutes. Shadows darted through the cloud. Silvery scales flashed like stars twinkling in a night sky.

  Three minutes, 350 psi.

  The biggen passed. Thirty feet of hulking death, too busy focused on wounded eights. Smaller shapes of great barracuda trailed behind seeking leftover morsels in its wake.

  Two barracuda broke off and approached, coming in close to Shaquan and Sam. Their wide, staring eyes and snaggled, smiling teeth seemed to ask, “What’s wrong? You’re leaving the party, come stay with us, forever.” An oceanic version of The Shining.

  Two minutes. 150 psi.

  Shaquan shooed at the barracuda and received no reaction.

  Sam could not help but laugh. Gallows humor, he thought. Great barracuda are indifferent to such gestures. Poor guy, too scared to remember. Then his own breathing shallowed. Something was floating up from the depths. A lazy arm, entangled in a BC, ascended towards them.

  One minute. Less than 100 psi.

  Sam reached out, plucked the jacket, and read the initials “MHO.” One barracuda raced forward and ripped the disembodied arm out his hand and dragged the BC back to the deep.

  Shaquan screamed and kicked off the safety bar, sending Sam flying to the surface.

  Sam sucked one the last breath of air in the lines dropping the pressure to zero, drew out his mouthpiece and sucked in the salty ocean air while bobbing
on the surface like a fishing lure. Abu grasped his BC and hurled him onto the boat.

  Shaquan, already on the boat, ripped off his mask and yelled, “Fuck that, man! I’m never doing wreck scatter again. Let that jackass O’Connell do it, I’m a spotter. A hunter, not some goddamned Labrador.”

  Sam crawled out of his BC, yelling, “Dammit, Shaquan! Do not toss the bar again, you could have killed me.”

  Abu stepped between them, holding out his hands. “Guys, it’s over. Shaquan, it’s over, ok?”

  “Ok,” Shaquan drew in a deep breath and said, “I’m ok. I’m good.”

  “Sam,” Abu asked, “are you ok?”

  “Yeah man.”

  “Good. Did either of you see Master Hunter O’Connell? He’s not up yet.”

  Blood filled Sam’s brain, weighing it downward atop his bellowing lungs. Wedging his hands to hold it up and avoid passing out, he replied, “He is not coming up.”

  Shaquan dipped his head into his hands and asked, “It came from him?”

  “Yeah, it was him.” Sam felt detached, as if having a diaphanous body.

  “Damn,” Shaquan marveled.

  Abu, noticeably frustrated, pressed, “What came from who, guys?”

  Shaquan blared, “We saw his arm! A swollen up, motherfucking purple hand sticking out the neoprene sleeve, caught in his BC.”

  The waves lapped up the stern of the boat as it listed. Ill feelings of O’Connell calcified in regret, dug up later once the shock eroded away.

  “I’m sorry I kicked off on the bar, Sammy. The arm freaked me out.”

  Sam failed to respond, mired in reflection.

  “Sammy?” He nudged his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, I know Shaquan, I know. We are brothers, man, I forgive you.”

  The two embraced. Surviving the Wash meant watching others die. Expecting someone to succumb to its whimsy did not change the following emotional pain. The event’s wrecking ball hammered into Sam’s heart. He did not cry for O’Connell. He shuddered at its reminder—death was non-judicious.