And finally, Stephanie, who read this book knowing what it was and knowing that she wasn’t a fan of the genre, and came out loving it. You encouraged me, and offered sound advice on how to make a better monster story by making a better story. You’re the best.
About the Author
Vaughn A. Jackson is a writer of speculative fiction, and author of both Up from the Deep and the upcoming novel Touched by Shadows. He is also a member of the Horror Writers Association.
Vaughn lives near Baltimore with his girlfriend and two grumpy gremlins who disguise themselves as the cutest kittens in the world. He is still waiting on an alien of pure light to give him a transformation device that allows him to fight giant monsters. It’s bound to happen soon, right…?
Find Vaughn on Twitter via @blaximillion or at www.thevaughnthewordslinger.weebly.com
PRESENT DAY
“Just a sec!”
Barbara Holden put on one of her better smiles and looked over the rail into the choppy waters of the Atlantic, suppressing the shudder again. She’d always been fascinated by the ocean, even as a girl growing up in a rural, western Pennsylvania town, but on this particular bright midsummer day, she felt seized by a disturbing sense of unease—something probing at her deeper instincts.
A nagging sense that her sunny, youthful worldview might be threatened by darker, distinctly unpleasant things.
She shook her head and brushed back an errant lock of wavy, red hair.
At thirty-one and in the prime of her womanhood, she cut the kind of dazzling figure one associated with successful sustainability-minded entrepreneurs or moviemakers these days; the sunny, slightly attractive type marketing companies adored on their social media feeds.
She was neither, in fact, but after getting laid off from her Marketing Director position at Eco-World Technologies, had been working the past summer as a bartender in Bridgehampton while she reconsidered her career options.
Around that time, she crossed paths—and became smitten—with Ewan Vickers.
Ewan seemed everything the men that had been in her life to date were not: unflinchingly confident, sincere, and boldly committed to a purpose in life greater than himself. It didn’t hurt that he had a surfer’s body and was incredibly handsome in a Kennedy-esque way, with wavy sun-bleached hair and dimpled chin.
Not to mention five years younger.
“C’mon, Barb! We’re burning daylight!” Never the vaguely demeaning babe, or dear, or hon like some of her exes.
She loved the way he addressed her: seriously. Like an equal.
Mostly.
Ewan stood at the stern of their boat, a sleek 41-foot Sea Ray he claimed he’d bought off a bankrupt local fisherman. Although when she’d teased him once on why they were tooling around in a gas-guzzling luxury yacht while shooting documentaries geared toward saving the planet, his face had clouded over momentarily as he’d replied: “In a perfect world, Barb, in a perfect world…” as if that explained it all.
A part of his charm, she’d decided: his ability to embrace anything in clear terms. It didn’t hurt, she also realized, that Ewan Vickers seemed to live in a world where money was never any problem, a luxury she didn’t have.
She made her way back to where he was standing with Toby Graham, his fellow surfer and videographer. Tall and black, Toby had the kind of open face and natural charm that would have had her swinging in his arms if fate hadn’t handed her Ewan first. Even so, there’d been one or two occasions over the past couple of months when she’d caught him sneaking glances at her, only to turn away with a quick smile.
Today however, he was all business.
“Surfer Dude” appearances aside, one thing both men were serious and thorough about was their diving equipment. And today’s dive, after what they’d unexpectedly discovered the day before, meant going deeper than usual. With it came an element of danger—this dive site was in a restricted zone, off limits to everything but surface vessels.
But opportunity was here.
When not running their deep diving business taking tourists to the various shipwrecks off Long Island, Ewan and Toby handled underwater photography for networks like Nat Geo and Discovery, though lately they’d been increasingly handling more assignments for GreenWaters’ investigation and litigation division. Barbara wasn’t sure, but she sensed there might be a few fraying edges around the two men’s financial picture. Or something else, altogether. Ewan had been acting increasingly distracted, even in bed at night.
They’d been particularly close-mouthed about this assignment. She’d only overheard snatches between Ewan and Toby at their apartment overlooking Fort Pond—something about illegal dumping just southeast of the Montauk Shoal, right about where they currently were, in fact.
There were rumors of a source out of Star Island Marina, which was already on their radar for supporting charter sport fishing. Ewan said it was a blatant crime against the planet and its dying resources. He’d encouraged a lot of his friends with a local advocate group called ‘PlanetJustice’ to post scathing tweets and one-star reviews on social media as a way of putting pressure on them, even though they’d never actually been on the fishing boats or visited the marina. Barbara’s comment, “But wasn’t Montauk kind of founded on sport fishing? I mean, they’re just trying to make a living too,” earned a withering glare from Ewan: “After it was ripped from the hands of the Native Americans. Those bastards are making money destroying our natural resources, Barb. Killing sharks for fun? You call that ‘making a living’?”
“Well, no—” she’d started to respond when he’d cut her off with “—Don’t go there. You’ve got a lot to learn, yet. Times are a-changing, and we’re spearheading that change!”
She’d been put off by his mansplaining, but as with all things, Ewan let it drop.
“Where’s your backup dive computer?” Ewan asked, as they rechecked all their gear. They had the larger High Pressure 120
