Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser Page A

short bursts. Rain added to the swirling wet of the sea. Maybe Thad had died.
    â€œI wouldn’t be surprised if a flying saucer came out of that big eye over there,” he yelled at Martha, and had the urge to giggle, but not the strength. She twisted away from him, and he had to haul her back to the line. “Stay put.”
    â€œGreg!”
    But Greg Durwent went over the side. Martha turned limp against Thad, and he made the strength to keep them both attached to the rope. They rose again on a gigantic, endless swell, and Thad’s stomach seemed to rush to his feet. Martha nearly broke loose from his exhausted grip.
    Aulalio Paz slid backward on his stomach, eyes and mouth gaping, finger- and toenails digging into the deck like a startled cat’s. He wrapped himself around Martha’s legs.
    â€œGrab the line, not her,” Thad screamed over the sea’s hysteria. “Can’t hold you both!”
    They were all sliding down the rope, Thad’s hands burning, his arm—threaded under Martha’s armpits and across her chest—going numb before Aulalio got a hold on the rope and Thad felt the release of his weight. He inched himself and the woman higher up to give the guide more room as the dive boat crested the wave, bucked, and plunged.
    The descent was brutal, life preservers flung out to the ends of their rope tethers and high into the air, shining an odd luminous white against the sooty, roiling sky. Aulalio rose too on the end of their line and pounded back into the deck, narrowly missing a corner of the air-tank container.
    As they bottomed out in the deep of the trough, Thad could see huddled shapes around the deck but didn’t have time to count them before salt water slammed over the side to sting the various scraped areas on his body and threatened once again to drown him.
    He had no idea how long this torture lasted, nor exactly when the seas calmed, the sky cleared, and the squall was at an end. But eventually the sun grew hot and his skin sticky with dried salt water.
    Men moved about, their wet suits patchy and shredded, blood oozing from scrapes. Dark swellings. One limped, another held an arm tightly with the other hand. Everyone peered over the side. Except Martha Durwent. She sat on the bench seat with her head in her hands. A drying blood trail ran from her hair, down her neck, and across the nipple of an exposed breast.
    Other than the few air tanks still in their holes, the boat had emptied of gear. The crowded jumble of food containers, masks, fins—all had washed overboard. Harry-the-baker counted heads.
    Thad pulled himself to his knees and then to his feet, stood swaying to look out over a sea still frothy white with grains of sand. No eyeball. No Styrofoam cooler tops floating on the surface. “How many?” he asked Harry.
    â€œCan’t keep my wits straight long enough to remember how many we were to begin with. But if I’m counting right, we only lost four,” he said with disbelief.
    â€œWe’re missing Bo, Abrams, Terry, and Martha’s husband.” Don pulled in a life preserver by its line, as if expecting to find a survivor.
    Eliseo tugged open a trapdoor in the deck and crawled into the pit to bail out the water around the engine with a face mask that had hung around his neck through it all. His brother watched dumbly, crossed himself, muttered under his breath.
    â€œQuiet! Listen.” Martha looked up, dropping her hands. Everyone else froze. A far-off cry. It could have been a bird. And it could have been human. She stood. “Greg!”
    Another faint cry. An answer? Coincidence?
    â€œCould be a sea gull. Don’t get your hopes up too high.” Harry put his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Over here!”
    The answer came back right away, and Thad thought he could even detect the direction.
    â€œThat’s a man.” Don jumped into the pit to help Eliseo. “Sounded like either