Into the Depths

Into the Depths
by D. E. Bryson

Ron and his wife, Marren, were lovers of two things: diving and mysteries. Particularly, old and cryptic mysteries that seem to be make their home in Old Europe. The mystery of the day was an odd one they picked up from teenagers. They told the couple, with a dash of bravado, about a lake up in the mountains with an odd dome-shaped formation at the lake's bed. The ones who had braved the muddy depths tell tale of a door of some metal that hasn't rusted.
Being in the area, Ron insisted they go for a dive and see this door. Marren was reluctant at first but agreed in the end. However, it seemed the instant they decided to go and asked for directions to the lake, they were accosted with pleas not to go. One woman that gave them directions to the lake, asked with an air of suspicion, why they were going to that lake. Before the reason was all the way past their lips, she gave a howl of terror. Tears leaked down her face. She begged and pleaded, on both of her knobby knees, with them not to go, occasionally drifting into her native tongue.
With the information they needed, they left the hysterical woman and spent the day getting to the lake. Dark grey clouds hung low that day, casting a gloomy feel to the waning day. Just before sunset they acquired a boat for the night just as the last of the day's meager amount of light failed.
The night, lit by a pale crescent moon, was thick with an unnatural silence. No birds called, no frogs croaked, not even a bug to annoy the ear. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees to whisper or water to lap against the rocky shore. Ron and Marren, if not for the beating of their hearts, would have thought that they had gone deaf that night. The roar of the boat's engine shattered the eerie quiet. It seemed an appalling violation of the silence that was so terribly beautiful to hear.
With a depth-finder active they went looking for the dome-shaped mound. Aided by a metal detector that beeped madly as the depth-finder read out an increase in the lake bottom, they found their target after only a few hours of searching. Wetsuits on, scuba gear readied, and Marren with an underwater camera and lights powerful enough to penetrate the darkest murk, they dove into the chilly, inky black water.
The lights, powerful enough to cut into the gloom of the dark ocean, did not reach nearly as far as it should have. Ron pulled out a thumb-thick stick, a flare, and gestured to Marren. She nodded and he dropped the bright flares. Not fifteen or twenty feet down, the flares hit bottom, but almost instantly began to roll away. Illuminated by the red light of the sputtering flare, a dome-like mound lay just below them.
Eager, the two kicked their flippers and down to the mound they descended. Ron felt the mound with his gloved hands. The mound was made of thick rock covered with layers of muck and silt. It wasn't until then that Marren noticed a lack of wildlife: fish, plant or otherwise down this deep.
Ron motioned for Marren to come closer when he saw what looked like a door handle, thrusting from the dirt and muck. Marren held the camera to her eye. She pressed the button but when Marren looked to the preview screen she was disappointed to see a distortion in the picture. Lines of static snaked across the picture of the door. Though the picture itself wasn't distorted it was nonetheless like looking at a television with bad reception. She pondered only a moment more when she looked up to tell Ron of the malfunction.
She gave a start.
Ron had both hands gripping the door handle. Legs planted on the dome, Ron gave a great pull and, to Marren's surprise, it opened with unexpected ease. The metal door clanged against the dome sending a brief cloud of muck and dirt to billow up. Blackness, beyond anything the night-clad lake bottom could ever conjure waited beyond the door. It was blackness not even the powerful flashlights Ron held could pierce.
Ron gestured for her to bring her stronger lights to look inside. She did better: she brought her camera and took a photograph. She looked at the preview. She hadn't time to register the image when Ron was suddenly and violently pulled down into the blackness. Marren screamed into her mouthpiece. She frantically kicked away. Ron's light drifted down to the dome. The weak beam illuminated a thick, dark red cloud that spewed from the darkness of the underwater door, a cloud littered with bits of meaty debris. The sight vanished as the light slid away, becoming a faint ghost in the deep.
Marren swam for all she was worth. As she ascended, the faint, ghostly light of the moon came filtered down on her. Marren, almost at the surface, released the heavy camera with its mysterious image. She broke the surface. She tossed off her facemask and her mouth-piece to breathe fresh air. Marren wept in shock. Her shoulders bobbed with her sobs.
She stopped crying, abruptly, when she felt something rub against her leg. She gave a brief, horrific scream that was cut off as she was viciously pulled under the surface. She continued to scream as she was pulled into the depths. She clawed at the waters in a hopeless attempt to get back to the surface, thrashed in vain against the thing holding her legs in a vice-like grip. In her final struggles, she sailed past her descending camera.
As she vanished into the inky depths, as the last air bubbles ascended to the distance surface, the camera drifted down after her. Like a leaf in autumn it followed with its late master down and through the gapping door. Its last obscure image still previewed on its minute screen. Through wavy lines of distorting static, uncaring, alien eyes stared back. Demonic teeth gnashed, irritated at the sudden light of the camera's flash. Black tentacles writhed; now free to reach up to drag down into the dark, cold depths.