Rapture of the Deep

There were three of them on the boat and the weather had just gone from sunny to dark.

Pete put the mouthpiece in and took two quick breaths, loving the sound of Darth Vader’s labored breathing. The boat rocked in the current and Pete felt the breeze on his face.His instructor and dive partner were both gearing up.

Assuming no problems, he would be certified in another hour. One more dive; a deep one at eighty feet to see a plane wreck, ten minutes of down time and back up.

Pete reached for his fins, but before he could grab them, the deck of the boat shot up, causing his knees to buckle.

Glad nobody saw that.

The dive was making Pete nervous, but he wasn’t going to show it for one reason, Amy Jugenspree, his diving partner. At sixteen, Amy was older, as well as tan, athletic, and popular. She was the only person Pete knew with a tattoo.Amy reminded Pete of a poster at the dive shop with a diver wrapped in the arms of a mermaid, titled “Rapture of the Deep’.

“Pete,” called Amy. “Hey partner, daydreaming over there?”

Yup.

The raspy voice made her sound, well, hotter, Pete thought, as he struggled to keep his eyes level with hers.

“Sorry. Let me help you,” said Pete, lifting the air tank for Amy to slide into. Both were struggling to stay balanced on the shifting deck. Amy was strong, but the equipment was heavy and required partners to assist each other with all the straps. “You ready for this,” he asked.

“Little nervous,” she said, wiping sweat from her brow. “Kinda worried about equalizing; you know. I don’t want to screw this up for you.”

Pete felt the uncertainty, a side of her he hadn't seen before. Over the past few weeks of training, they’d struck up an unlikely friendship.

Pete eyed her looking at the shoreline. Her dad was sitting in a yard chair as close to the shore as you could get. The seat next to him was empty. “Na, you got this,” said Pete, giving her his best smile. “Don’t even think about it.” And then adjusted her tangled chest straps.

“Hey Amy, watch where Romeo puts his hands.”

Pete’s face blushed and Amy rolled her eyes.

It was Lucas, their diving instructor. He gave his students a hard time, especially Pete…always Pete.

Pete knew his instructor was a good guy and competent, but way too muscled.

Lucas eyed the weight belts of his two students. “How much weight, Pete?”

Pete had done the calculations of how much he needed on his belt to keep him from floating up. “Twelve pounds.”

Lucas smiled. “Right on.A pound less and you’ll be bobbing to the surface. Also,you can feel that wind, right? It’s a storm front, so the current down there is going to be stronger than you are used to.

Amy attempted a smile, but Pete knew she was hiding something. Her eyes were red, she was struggling.

Amy said, “This is the anniversary, you know.”

***

The divers glided, amid a swarm of air bubbles, to the bottom of the lake. Each watched a computer to monitor depth, air levels and, most important, time.Underwater, time was everything.Pete looked up and saw what remained of their boat before it faded to black.

Thirty feet…thirty seven…forty five.

The divers were close enough their shoulders touched, and Pete could see his instructor only with the help of glow sticks attached to Lucas’s tank.The glow made Lucas look like a ghost outlined in green.

…fifty two…fifty eight.

Sixty feet down, the trio switched on their flashlights creating what Pete thought looked like a pathetic light-saber battle with each of their beams shining in different directions.

The divers hit bottom at eighty-four feet with a fog of silt exploding around them.Pete was immediately blinded and felt the beat of his hear. He took a deep breath and adjusted his buoyancy a foot above the mud to let the silt settle, but instead of hovering, all three found themselves being pulled along the bottom of the lake from a fast moving river flowing along the bottom of the lakebed.

At his side, Amy was rotating like a bullet, throwing her arms and legs out to stop the spin. Lucas was floating on his back and looking back at his two students as if he had no fear.Pete felt dizzy, but calm enough to reach for Amy’s arm and try and steady her. Amy’s eyes were wide but she was calming as she found her groove in the current.

To orient himself, he shined his light in the distance. As the silt cleared, he saw a cargo jet embedded in the mud. Lukas extended his fist for a double bump from Pete and Amy. This thing was old and cracked up, down here for years. Up close it looked like a building laying on its side.

Good to Go... they had ten minutes at this depth, starting now.

The three divers drifted next to the aircraft. The wings, with edges like a rusty saw, had collapsed and angled down into the mud. The windows were long gone, and the elongated structure was crinkled like an accordion from where it had hit the lakebed, but the plane’s vertical tail stood tall collecting fish nets that were lashing in the current like a hundred individual vipers snapping at any divers that came near.

Lucas threw his hand up in caution to survey the wreck, especially the nest of nets. Pete knew his instructor was looking for danger and if it was safe for the students to continue.

Sounds are unusual underwater. With the amplification of water, you never knew where a noise was coming from, but the sound of a scream could still be felt. Out of the darkness, a net, the size of an industrial cable, whipped through the shadows, wrapping itself around Amy’s waste and pulling her into a fog of silt. Pete was numb, but Lucas was already moving. He was fast, grabbing for, and then missing Amy as she was pulled deeper into the silt.The remnants of the net looked like a snake slithering around his friend’s body, pulling her head over heels to the plane. In seconds, visibility was nothing. The lakebed had become a battleground.

Other than the sound of a heartbeat, the lakebed went silent. Amy had been sucked into a blackhole. Just as suddenly, the net whipped out of the dark, throwing Amy, with the intensity of a cannonball, into her diving instructor.

In the collision, Lukas lost his mouthpiece, and worse, his weight belt. Pete had come out of his paralysis and was swimming toward his friends, but he was too late to help Lukas. Pete caught a glimpse of the instructor but could only make out arms and legs cartwheeling as the man was catapulted to the surface without his weight belt to hold him down.

Pete, his heart pounding, spun around looking for Amy, but she had disappeared for a second time. To make it worse, his facemask began fogging up. Then in his beam of light, he found her flashlight half buried in the silt.

At first the boy didn’t know what the find meant, but hoped she was swimming to the surface. And then the ringing started. A distant, metallic clang reverberating in the water. Pete knew Amy was signaling him. The sound was the tapping of her knife against metal.

Pete swam towards the front of the wreck, uber aware of whipping nets and rusted metal but couldn’t trace the sound as he landed on the nose of the aircraft. It came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The clanging grew in intensity and thankfully the silt was dissipating. From Pete’s position at the front of the wreck, he could see down both sides of the fuselage. The nets still whipped overhead forcing him to keep his head down and stay close to the body of the aircraft.

In the commotion, he had forgotten the countdown and grabbed his dive computer. He had six minutes left before he had to ascend. Scratch that, he and Amy had six minutes left. After six minutes, he would have to make an impossible decision if he didn’t find her.

Pete felt struck when the realization hit him and wanted to bang his palms against his temples. He aimed the light in the front windows of the aircraft, hoping to see Amy, but couldn’t see past debris and mud that had accumulated in the cockpit.

Pete tore down the length of the fuselage…nothing to see but mud and muck. At the last window, he could see the girl’s legs kneeling in the silt.Pete couldn’t reach her from outside the window and it was too narrow to swim through, so he turned and swam back around the aircraft looking for the door. Sticking his head inside, the boy saw the remnants of branches and old boats all covered in layers of mud, but there was enough of a passage to swim just as Amy had, and now he knew why Amy was using the aircraft as a refuge. Above his head he could see a tiny air pocket leading like a trail to the rear of the wreck.

Seven minutes earlier, the cable that attacked Amy wrapped ripped off her tank and threw her into Lukas. Without air, dazed and disoriented, Amy found herself lying over the rusted wing. She had been cognizant enough to look for air in the wreck and lucky enough to find it.At a loss, she used her knife and tapped the metal of the wrecked plane, hoping for help.

***

Pete looked at his computer…two minutes remaining, and Amy had no tank to breath from. Both teens struggled, cheek to cheek.

All divers had emergency mouthpieces and Pete ripped it from its holder. Amy was biting her lip, unable to look at the boy, but said, “Thank you for coming back.” She took two quick breaths and kissed Pete’s cheek. They both dropped down into the much of the aircraft.

Pete glanced at his computer…one minute left. Amy led the way out, Pete following closely. Exiting the door felt like escaping a collapsed tunnel. Pete kicked off the edge of the wreck and aimed up.

The water was still dark, but Pete felt Amy holding tight.

…fifty-eight feet.

Pete guessed they would hit the surface in less than two minutes and felt relief as the water turned from black to blue, and then he took his last breath of air.

GRRRRRR…the sound of sucking empty air.

…thirty feet.

Pete hadn’t considered his remaining air…and now with both using his tank, it was empty. Pete could see Amy’s eyes had gone wide and was on her last breath as well.

Both had trained for this. Ascending thirty feet on one breath of air was possible, but tough.Pete and Amy tossed their mouthpieces and began a slow exhale…twenty-five feet remained.

Pete’s eyes were closed, ignoring the suffocation, head back, one arm around Amy, the other reaching for the surface.

Eleven feet…

With no more air to exhale, Pete’s chest flamed out. He fought the urge to inhale but swallowed the cold lake water. His body twitched; arms and legs spasmed.

Light blinded Pete’s eyes as he coughed water from his lungs. They were on the surface. Amy’s lips were next to his, her hands tilting his head and holding his chin. She was providing mouth to mouth. She was his air. His deep breaths came quickly and then began to slow.

“We made it,” Amy said.

Pete didn’t have the strength for words, just closed his eyes.The girl laid her head on his shoulder.