Free The Deep by Nick Cutter Page A

trap.
    “You know what’d help? Something sweet. Why don’t you and Mom go downstairs and grab a few chocolate chips.”
    While they were downstairs, Luke hustled into his bedroom and grabbed two small chunks of obsidian he’d picked up during a trip to Hawaii years ago. He set them in the middle of the ring and shut the closet.
    When Zach returned, Luke strung the chocolate chips along the edge of the closet door.
    “The sweetness will draw those Fig Men out of hiding. Now Zach, the trap is set. But if you open the closet the spell will be broken. So you must not open it until tomorrow morning. Promise?”
    “I promise.”
    “Cross your heart and hope to die?”
    “Stick a needle in my eye,” Zach said solemnly.
    “Do you want to sleep in our bed tonight?”
    Zach shook his head. “I’m okay now.”
    Back in the bedroom, Abby kissed him with uncommon ardor. Luke enjoyed a deep dreamless sleep, feeling very much like a minor superhero. The next morning, Zach flung the closet open.
    “The trap worked!” he cried.
    He raced into their bedroom clutching the blackened, calcified Fig Men.
    “It’s a cocoon,” Luke said. “Except these ones are hard—a prison. The Fig Men will never be able to escape. Put them on display as a warning to any other monster that might wander along. It’s not every day that you can hold a monster in your palm.”
    Zach set them on his nightstand. They were still there, in the room Luke had left untouched since the day his son had gone missing—
    A shadow fell over Luke’s shoulder, snapping him back to reality. The minipiranhas scattered, zipping under the Hesperus in a silvery flashing of scales.
    “You about ready?” Al asked.
    Spider legs scuttled up the lining of Luke’s stomach.

2.
    CHALLENGER 5 WAS SUSPENDED from a miniature sky crane. Its hatch hung open like a hungry mouth.
    Luke carried only a duffel bag with a change of clothes and a cable knit sweater. Plus a toiletry kit with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a stick of deodorant.
    Where will I spit my toothpaste? he wondered. There couldn’t be a drainage system. No conventional toilets, either—one flush and the pressure would probably cave in the Trieste .
    I’ll swallow my toothpaste , he thought. And pee in a bottle .
    “I’ll get in first and take the cockpit. You’ll sit a little lower.” Al smiled. “It’s a good news, bad news scenario. Good news is, you get the better view. Bad news is, your head’s going to be parallel with my behind.”
    Luke grinned despite the quivers that kept rippling through his belly. Al ducked through the hatch. Luke realized for the first time that the vessel was designed to dive vertically: they’d be arrowing straight down into the black.
    Luke ducked and stuck his head inside the sub. The sight reminded him of the cockpit of a commercial jetliner, only much more cramped.
    “Hop in,” Al said from inside, already flicking switches. “You’ll have to tuck your knees, and be careful not to touch anything unless I ask you to.”
    The webbing of Luke’s seat sagged like a hammock; Luke sank into it so deeply that his chin nearly touched his knees. Instrumentation panels sat a few inches off each shoulder, their uncomfortable electrical warmth bathing his face. His body tightened instinctually, his musclesand posture contracting; it felt a little like being trapped at the bottom of a village well, except there wasn’t even a view of the sky. Al sat a few feet above with her back to Luke. She craned her head down.
    “Comfy, uh? Wish I could let you pop an Ambien and sleep through the descent, but that shit does a number on your blood—added pressure, yeah?”
    Luke had never considered how it might feel to be buried alive in a buzzing, blinking, high-tech coffin, but he had a good sense of it now.
    The hatch closed with a satisfying thunk —the sound of a luxury car door slamming shut. A gassy hiss was followed by a volley of pressurized tinks!
    Al said: “It’s a