Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser

wasn’t, he’d never forgive himself for playing it safe after seeing that diver in trouble.
    He considered trying to go through the egg-shaped gray mass still growing beneath him—just to test the dream theory. But he had time to admit he hadn’t the nerve. He swam over it, one fin scraping the burgeoning surface. He was on the other side, where he’d seen a diver being pulled into the sand at the rim of the emerging … whatever it was, the diver’s hands above his head, finned feet already disappearing in a suction of some kind between the sea floor and the rising … hulk? Thing? Alive? Machine? His mind balked at “space hangar.” Too Edward P. III. Too sensationalized, Devil’s Triangle type of crap.
    Thad found the diver’s air tank, mask, and attached snorkel tumbling down a sand heap, making way for still more of the giant eye. No buoyancy vest, fins. No diver. Thad found the sound and the pressure unbearable, found tears mixing with blood inside his mask and himself rising to the surface, dragging the extra equipment and unable to see through the viscous cloud between his eyes and the mask window.
    He screamed at himself to wake up, and was startled when he broke the surface. He couldn’t seem to let go of the additional gear, as if it were a lifeline to a lost diver. A tugging sucked at him from beneath, and, finally dropping the other air tank, he paddled blindly away from the thing rising in the water. This was no dream. It was death. Thad was shocked to find it so recognizable.
    Would he see Ricky again? Or was there anything of Ricky to see?
    A wave, a force, something, propelled him into the air, knocked his mask ajar so he could see again, see the blood escaping on white water near his face as he plunged, defenseless. Drowning.
    The regulator wrenched from his mouth, jerking loose teeth that had clamped around rubber tabs. He retreated into his mind. It was not filled with memories on parade to review his life, nor regret at its shortness, nor fear at its end. Merely shock. And anger that this should be happening. Rage.
    Thad slammed into something hard. Within that something, the echo of the sound of his impact was the last sound he heard before even his rage gave way to nothing.
    â€œHave we got everybody?”
    â€œJust get us the hell out of here!”
    â€œCan’t count heads with everybody flying around so.”
    â€œEngine working?”
    â€œWhere’s Bo?” A woman’s voice, next to his ear. She held him from behind. They were both being tossed about on the deck of the boat.
    Martha Durwent. He was alive. He couldn’t believe it.
    â€œThrow the life preservers out. Maybe somebody’ll catch one.”
    â€œWhere’s Bo?” Martha screamed.
    â€œBo? You on board, Bo?”
    â€œ Madre de Dios … clemencia … por favor .”
    â€œAulalio, get this fuckin’ tub moving!”
    Thad doubled up in a choking spasm that ripped him from Martha’s arms and sent him into the crevice under a shelf seat, where he became lodged but then skidded out again as water washed over the boat. He slid down the deck like the watermelons had done earlier, and into Don Bodecker. The salesman pressed a rough rope into Thad’s hands, forced his fingers to clamp around it. “It’s tied to a cleat.”
    One arm of Don’s wet suit was ripped almost off and hanging behind, but his exposed flesh looked unharmed.
    The bow lunged into the air and a jumble of diving gear and Styrofoam coolers went overboard at the stern. Martha Durwent grabbed his ankle, her wet hair slicked against her head and shoulders. He pulled her up to where she could hang on to the line with him, just as the open boat nose-dived. Thad found himself staring at the giant gray eye. It swelled above an angry ocean and was outlined against the sky.
    Clouds twisted in on themselves and then expanded, darkened. Lightning jagged in odd