Cavern

Tommy stopped short of stepping aboard the boat. "I'm not sure about this, dad."

"I'm not sure about this, dad!" his father mocked in a whiny voice. You some kind of

Nancy-boy?"

The adolescent boy ignored the insult. He was far too worried about what might

happen tonight to concern himself with paltry matters. "Only a handful of people have
gone that deep outside of a submersible," he pointed out.

His father boarded the boat, then turned to call softly. "That proves it's safe, otherwise

no one would have even attempted the drop."

"Look, apart from being dangerous, what you're planning to do is wrong."

The man cupped a hand to his ear and beckoned his son over. The moment Tommy

had stepped across, his father cast off. As the boat drifted away from the harbour
wall, Tommy repeated himself.

"Hah!" his father ridiculed a little too loudly. He glanced quickly around. The light

was on in the harbour master's hut, but no one emerged. All seemed quiet. "We're
going to have to break through this naivety of yours," he whispered.

"There's a difference between naivety and caution," said Tommy.

His father allowed the Rosemary - named after his late wife and Tommy's mother -

to chug gently and quietly between the gap in the harbour wall, before smoothly
bringing the speed up to maximum knots.

"Listen," he said to Tommy as he headed out to sea. "Two divers discovered a cavern

in the uncharted depths of the North Sea. Inside, the walls are literally covered with a

yellowish mineral. The couple of samples they brought up for analysis were found to
be unique. There are no others in the entire world. Do you realise what that means to
their value? They're priceless!"

"But if we collect a sack full of the minerals there would be more in circulation.

Wouldn't that lower the value?"

His father grinned. "Not necessarily. There are plenty of diamonds in the world; I

wish I had some of them," he muttered under his breath. "Even if they halve the value
with each gem, that's still a hefty amount of dosh. Even Rosemary would have seen
the sense in that."

"Don't bring mum into it; she wouldn't have anything to do with this. Anyway, how do

you plan to sell them without revealing your identity?"

"I don't think I'd have any trouble. Besides, there are always private collectors abroad,

if it comes to that." His eyes turned distant, no doubt imagining the riches to come.

Tommy gazed at the tarpaulin-covered bulk on the deck nearby. His skin prickled

with trepidation. Although they were in the open, subject to the chill night air, Tommy

realised he was sweating. It was the perspiration of anxiety.

Wiping his forehead with a sleeve of his coat, he said, "What about the suits? Are

they safe?"

"Safe as houses. They're a new design, not even available to the professionals yet.

They revolutionise the deep sea diving industry. Imagine what new discoveries are
going to be made when the suits become more plentiful. By then we'll have missed the
boat." He chuckled at his own joke.

Tommy was unconvinced. "How will you find the right drop point?"

His father whooshed out a heavy sigh. "You're full of questions, aren't you?" The tone

was meant to bring the conversation to a halt, at least temporarily.

Tommy fell silent. Instead he stared out at the darkness. It was difficult to see exactly

where the sea ended and the sky began; they melted into each other, leaving him with a

lonely sense of hopelessness. Even the full moon seemed to accuse him with its
presence. He longed to proclaim his innocence in this foolish expedition; that he'd
been coerced against his will; that any consequences should not be laid upon his
shoulders.

Time passed, and all too quickly for Tommy his father cut the engine. The boat

coasted under its own momentum towards a large red- and orange-coloured buoy. He
should have guessed the previous divers would have marked the area for their return.

His father pulled aside the tarpaulin cover. "Right, get your suit on," he instructed.

Tommy hesitated. "I'm not going," he said.

For just a moment his father was visibly stunned. But this quickly evolved into anger.

"Have you any idea what expense I went to arranging the ... acquisition of these
suits?"

Tommy shrugged. He didn't particularly care.

"Get that suit on! It needs to be safety checked."

Tommy stared at the deck. "But we don't know what's down there. There could be all

sorts of monsters!" He sounded desperate, even to himself,

His father doubled over, spluttering out a raucous guffaw. "Monsters? My God? What

next? I hate to shatter your childish illusions, but there are no such things as
monsters."

"There might be," Tommy objected lamely.

"When it comes down to it, you're a right Jessie. Trust me on this one: they don't

exist. Look, you're fifteen; isn't it about time you grew a backbone?"

They donned the suits. That in itself took more than twenty minutes. They were heavy

and awkward, not to mention hot and uncomfortable. He studied his father's features
through the face plate. His eyes were darting; they looked frightened but determined.
Tommy, facially identical, was radically different to his father. True, his father looked
scared, but it was nothing to how Tommy felt, he was sure. He had never felt so
terrified in his life; a deep-rooted terror which frequently froze him to the spot, forcing
his father to continually prod him into action. It was an accumulation of fears: the
unknown darkness of the depths; the uncertain safety of the suits at those depths; the
possibility of unusual sea creatures - his mind was haunted by visions of giant
octopuses attacking submarines in the Jules Verne-type productions; and the
character-driven inner-sense which told him what they were doing was wrong.

The safety checks were soon completed. "We look like a cross between Neil

Armstrong and Robbie the Robot," Tommy said through the high-tech two-way head
set receivers.

"Who gives a damn what we look like! Let's get on with it."

His father shoved him with two hands. Tommy teetered dangerously on the gunnel for

a moment, before overbalancing and plunging into the inky-black void. He tried
frantically flailing his limbs to regain his equilibrium, but the bulk of the suit was slow
to react. Panicking, he sank increasingly quickly, heart hammering, mind reeling.

Precious seconds expired before he remembered the suit's prime function. He

fingered a release mechanism and one of many valves built into the back of the suit
was opened, releasing a small rush of air which rose in the form of bubbles that
slightly decelerated his descent. The additional weights mechanically attached to the
waist and boots allowed him to sink to the required level, which in this case would be
the seabed.

Still, the descent seemed endless. Tommy imagined it to be like floating in space;

civilisation an infinity away, and with no sense of time or reality. Then he saw a light to
one side and realised his father must have immediately followed him overboard, to
have caught him up this quickly. He was pointing at his helmet; belatedly, Tommy was
reminded to turn on his own helmet light. The strip beam tried its best to penetrate the
cloak of darkness, but the black seemed all-encumbering, so that the light appeared
only to fade its shade.

Eventually they reached the bottom. Tommy's father held a line with a brightly

coloured end weight. Because the suits were not attached to winches on the boat and
carried their own independent air supplies, the weighted line was required for the return
journey, so that they didn't surface too far away from the boat. For added security he
wedged it part way beneath a rock anchored firmly to the sea bed. In his other heavily
protected hand he held a closely woven net type sack, carrying two light levering
tools.

Incredibly, they were only a short distance from the cavern entrance. There was no

mistaking it; there was nothing even resembling an underwater cave as far as the strip
lights would penetrate - which admittedly wasn't very far.

They made their way agonisingly slowly up to the gaping opening. To Tommy their

halting steps were sheer agony; all he wanted to do was get this nightmare expedition
over with, return to the surface and breath fresh air, walk on terra firma.

When they entered the cavern, their helmet lights instantly became more effective.

The proximity of the walls meant the darkness was less far-reaching, and so less
oppressive. It allowed Tommy to relax just a little. He became aware he had been
holding his breath for the last few steps.

The cavern walls were covered in yellow and green sea mosses, but no plant life more

extravagant. The floor was soft and yielding, like walking on wet carpet or a dewy
field. Tommy could see no life clinging to it.

They moved forward warily, checking the walls for signs of the yellow minerals. The

cavern widened and then split as they met with two offshoots. The walls in this wide
area had thousands of small white tentacles which swept backwards and forwards in
the current, no doubt collecting minute food particles in the waters. There was a feint
glow emanating from the left offshoot. Tommy's father pointed before starting off in
that direction. Tommy followed, heart thudding, and the blood pounding in his ears.

Rounding a sharp bend they were met by one immense wall of glassy, multifaceted

gems. Their helmet illumination made the minerals - more amber than yellow - appear
to flicker like Christmas decorations. Tommy stood mesmerised, completely
fascinated.

His father, however, immediately went to work. He pulled a tool from the net sack

and pressed it into Tommy's heavily gloved right hand. Then he took the other and
began to lever at the wall. Tommy watched for a moment before moving forward to
help. The sooner they filled the sack, the sooner they would escape from this alien
land.

He prised one of the minerals from the wall and grabbed as it floated free. Initially, he

forced them off separately, but they began to come away in groups of three or four.

Sometimes the gems were joined by the shale-like rock to which they were attached.
Millions of minute fragments of the rock and silt swirled around him and his father in
tiny eddies, until it was difficult to see clearly.

They had only half-filled the sack when Tommy released a cluster of gems from the

wall, uncovering a circular glassy object, approximately three inches in diameter. As he

leaned forward to take a closer look, an indeterminably small dark pin point quickly
grew until it almost completely filled the translucent circle.

Tommy staggered backwards in alarm, screaming "Ah!" into his helmet receiver.

Although he was leaning back, off balance, the weights on his boots ensured that he

remained upright.

His father moved across to see what he had discovered. Tommy's eyes were fixed

unerringly on the glassy object, though his subconscious mind registered the fact the
man had ignored his own son's health in favour of the find. With much enthusiasm, he
began prising away the many clusters of minerals around the object. To Tommy's
amazement he simply allowed them to swirl away in the slight current. Very soon he
had uncovered much of the surrounding area. The strange object seemed to be part of
a much larger shape, grey and ribbed. As he revealed the entire shape, they saw it was
roughly torpedo-shaped in appearance, a six foot long and well-rounded bomb. But it
looked far from solid.

Tommy cautiously approached the wall again. There was a definite gleam from the

grey substance. He pressed a gloved finger at it, and was surprised and a little
frightened when it sank in deeply before reforming its shape. A little behind the glassy
circle there was another smaller but otherwise identical object. Tommy's helmet light
caused the black to instantly shrink to a pin point. He pulled his head back sharply.
Although his heart was pounding hard, he was finding it difficult to breathe. There was
no doubt now in Tommy's mind that the circles were eyes, and that the bulk was some
sort of subterranean creature.

He longed to rip off his helmet and run, screaming, from the place; the situation

allowed him to do neither. All he could do was watch, stunned, as his father continued
in his attempt to detach the thing from the cavern wall.

"Dad," Tommy began, remembering the presence of the two-way helmet receiver,

"that... thing's alive. I th...think we ought to get out of h...here."

His father ignored him.

Gradually, the creature's anchorage on the wall began to loosen. Then it came away

all at once and sank to the cavern floor, thrashing violently. A yellow liquid turned the
water murky before dissipating. At the same moment the floor trembled, and the walls
of the cavern rumbled. Tommy stood rooted to the spot. His chest felt tight. He
couldn't catch his breath, although he was panting. The knowledge that he was
hyperventilating didn't abate the terror and pain. The creature ceased convulsing, just
as the cavern floor lifted horrendously and then fell to its original level.

"Some kind of earth tremor," his father told him, "we've got to get out of here. It's not

safe!" Rather an understatement. With a final look at the deceased creature - probably

disappointed it was impractical to take the body with him for later study - he pushed

Tommy back the way they had entered, one hand still stubbornly gripping the half
sack of minerals... his fortune.

The cavern was undulating and they were buffeted this way and that, like flotsam on

the incoming tide. Only the weighted suits prevented them being pounded into the
walls. Large chunks of rock were coming away on both sides, drifting free, before
sinking. It was necessary to move from side to side as they progressed.

Tommy turned to check on his father ... just as the cavern floor opened up behind the

man. The upheaval unbalanced him, but he saw his father thrown against a wall, where
he knocked his helmet hard and sank prone to the cavern floor. The sack opened and
all the gems drifted free, twinkling like fireflies.

"Dad!" Tommy saw that his eyes were closed, but whether that indicated unconscious

or dead, he had no way of knowing. The helmet appeared intact, as did the suit; he
was no expert in such matters. He gripped his father beneath each arm and pulled. It
was useless. He tried tugging on one leg. If only he could get him moving. He didn't
want to risk damaging the suit, sturdy as it was.

Tommy could see the cavern exit, so near and yet so far. As he watched, gauging the

distance, he felt a tremendous shuddering. Gradually, the gap was closing. Tommy
couldn't believe he was actually watching the rock move of its own accord. Although
his breathing had recovered, he found himself panicking like never before. Frantically,
he yanked on his father's leg; the suited bulk moved slowly, as if reluctant to give up
its resting place. He stopped suddenly as he realised the truth.

How could he have been so blind? The cavern was no natural rock form; it was a

hitherto unknown sea creature, and they had just killed its unborn baby!

The obvious immensity made it slow to move, but Tommy knew, at the rate the gap

was closing, he would never escape with his father in time.

"Dad, wake up! Please! Dad? Oh!"

He was close to tears now. There wasn't much time. Tommy looked at his father, and

back at the opening. He shook his father roughly; there was no change. A decision had
to be made.

"Sorry, Dad," he finally said, and made for the narrowing gap. Time seemed to stand

still at that moment. It was like wading through treacle. With every step he was
screaming, "No! No! No!", although his father had warned him yesterday it was
wasteful of air. Terror suffused him as he told himself, "I've left it to late!"

But then he was through as a heavy vibration informed him the gap had sealed

completely.

"DAD!!"

He was whimpering like a small child, increasingly frustrated by the fact that he

wasn't rising from the sea bed. It took a while to remember the weights. The suits had
been designed so the weights would take the wearer to the required level. They could
be jettisoned at any point; costly but convenient.

But Tommy considered nothing but rising to the surface immediately. The weights

went one at a time initially, but his impatience caused him to jettison the remainder

simultaneously, and he rose from the depths at a mind-numbing, painful and
nauseating rate.

When he broke surface his body was in turmoil. Agony; unbearable pressure on his

frame from all sides. Hands reached out and pulled him aboard a boat. But it wasn't
his father's. The original discoverers of the minerals? He had no idea.

His helmet was removed, and through a tremendous roaring in his ears, he heard

someone shout, "Let's get him packed in ice straight away! Can you hear me, son?"

Tommy could hear voices, mumbling and delirious. He realised they were his own,

but they continued nevertheless. Then one thing broke through the darkness and
disarray in his mind. As a face leaned close, Tommy shouted, "They do exist, dad.
They do exist!!"

END

Note: This story first appeared in the horror publication Peeping Tom.