Thump.

  From far away, filtered through the saltwater and puncturing the hull of the Narwhal, a heavy pounding begins in the early morning and continues right up through the afternoon. Sitting in the mess hall, hushed voices try to answer the question of its source. There is no doubt that it’s Julia, but beyond that, they can only guess.

  “I bet she’s trying to find a way out,” Max says.

  Piper shrugs. “But why?”

  “Well, if the whales had her trapped, maybe she never wanted to be here in the first place,” Elina says.

  “It’s all conjecture,” Piper replies. “Truth is we don’t even know what this animal is, so we can’t possibly try to speculate on its behavior.”

  “Why even bother speculating?” Jessica asks.

  That gets a reaction, frowns spreading around her.

  “There’s no point,” she continues.

  Ernie shakes his head. “Come on, Jess, that’s not like you at all; giving up.”

  “I’m just being honest with myself, Ernie. I can’t see a way out of this. Being trapped beneath the ice in the most remote part of the world would be bad enough, but then there’s that thing out there. It’s dark, I can’t sleep, I wake up dripping in sweat, my instincts screaming at me to run and hide, but there’s nowhere to go. Anybody who thinks we’re getting out of here alive is--”

  “Hey!” Lewis says from another table. “Nobody’s dying on my watch! Got that? Rescue is coming, and when it does we all walk out of here.”

  Jessica stands up. “--is delusional,” she finishes. “Rescue? At the rate we’re going, there won’t be anyone left to save by the time they get here.”

  “Jess,” Ernie says, reaching out to his sister.

  “I don’t know what’s going on down here! But stop acting like you do!” Jessica explodes. “There’s so much we don’t know, but I can tell you this, that monster outside won’t just leave us alone. I can feel it, clawing at my brain, I don’t know how, but the dreams mean something! I just need to find out what…”

  Jessica trails off at the end of her sentence and stares at the floor. She wanders out of the room, her footsteps growing distant as she walks into the darkness outside the mess hall.

  In the far distance, there’s another thump as Julia smashes into the ice encapsulating the hidden sea.

  “I’ll go after her.” Ernie stands.

  “Stop,” Piper says. “Give her some time alone. I know she’s your sister, and I know you care about her, but sometimes everybody needs a moment to themselves, to cool off, think rationally.”

  Ernie pauses, looks out the door, but sits. He looks at the unfinished sandwich on his plate that he had started eating before the conversation turned sour. He pushes it away, grimacing.

  “She may have a point,” Charlie says.

  Glum faces turn skeptical as they look to Charlie.

  She scratches the top of her head. “I don’t know about that part about the dreams, but she’s right about how little we know. We’re all tired, judgment’s probably more than a bit clouded, maybe we’re looking at this all wrong.”

  “Well, what do we know? For sure?” Piper asks.

  “Well, it’s big,” James says.

  “Wow, fucking genius over here,” Max says.

  “Shut up. You know what I mean, we know it’s bigger than whales at least.”

  Piper nods.

  “Loud too, very vocal,” Bill adds.

  “And the whales--” Charlie hesitates, trying to find the right way to describe Julia’s relation to the whales without making assumptions. “--well, they and Julia had some sort of relationship.”

  “One that ended in some real violence,” James adds.

  “And it was curious about the sub, but now just seems like it wants to get out of here,” Bill says.

  Nobody has any further additions.

  “Short list,” Piper says.

  “Don’t have much to go on,” Charlie responds.

  “We’ll just have to see what we can gather from waiting and listening,” Bill says. “We can’t risk anything more probing. It’s not safe.”

  Thump.

  “Sure wish we knew what she was doing though,” Charlie says, sighing. “I’ll admit that she’s starting to make me uneasy.”

  Max laughs. “Starting? Just now? Bill, where’d you find this girl? Nerves of steel over here. I ain’t afraid to say that I’m one good spook away from pissing myself.”

***

  Nearly a week has come and gone since the Narwhal sank. A week that, to anybody aboard, would easily be described as the worst of their life. And every day was getting harder. Charlie sits on her bed, unscrewing the bottom of her flashlight. They had started with plenty of flashlights and batteries to go around. It made things just a bit easier, a bit more bearable, being able to shine light through the darkness onboard. Two batteries drop onto her lap and two new ones go inside. This is the last pair Charlie will get. The number of batteries on the ship was dwindling and very soon that comfort of free and controllable light would vanish. The dim light in the mess hall of the burning stovetops, and the glow of computer screens in the control room, would become the only sources of illumination. The rest of the ship would go dark.

  Thump.

  Somewhere far away, Julia slams into the ice. Charlie sighs, a tired, uneven breath escaping from her lungs. The constant looming presence outside the Narwhal wore on her, and everybody else for that matter. Throughout the day, she thought she perhaps might get used to the noise, like an air conditioner, or even the creaking of the Narwhal’s hull which had become commonplace. But the sound of the beast outside crashing into the ice never failed to grab her attention, to make her flinch, ever-so-slightly. It served as a constant reminder of how precarious their situation was, of how little they knew of the creature, of how much danger she presented.

  It was exhausting. The fear, the darkness, the food rationing, the waiting. Pressure was mounting and Charlie could feel it. And she wasn’t alone, though different people were dealing with stress in different ways, some covering it better than others, it was pervasive, unavoidable anxiety that blanketed the ship. Nobody was immune, nobody was brave enough to push it aside. And no matter how weary they were--no matter how exhausted--they couldn’t sleep. The dark, and the fear of the unknown were hard enough to deal with, but insomnia amplified the stress to the extreme. The nightmares were unending, unstoppable, and just as unknown as Julia. They worsened with every passing night, and every time she woke, Charlie could feel the terror clutching at her heart and mind as she bolted awake. Though she didn’t react as dramatically as Jessica, she felt the screams in her throat, the painful gasping for breath, the tears in her eyes. It left her with a lingering sense of dread, but nothing beyond that, no clear image. Dreams often slipped away if no effort was made to retain them, but this was different, these dreams were gone before any attempt could be made to hold on to them. Not a single person on the Narwhal could even begin to describe it. The only trace of their existence was that they left a gripping terror within them, a fear that burrowed inside and loitered there, never fully dissipating until the next nightmare brought it back fresher and worse than the night before.

  Thump.

  Charlie flips on her flashlight. Beside her is Elina, her closest friend. Elina’s eyes are bloodshot and ringed by dark circles, and she knows she’s not much better off. It communicates her body’s desire for true, restful sleep, but her eyes show more than that. Though she is tired, she’s also afraid, a fear that keeps her alert.

  “Won’t she ever stop?” Elina asks, pleading.

  Charlie puts her hands atop Elina’s, but can’t find a response in words. Instead, she just sits quietly and tries to flush the thoughts of dreams and darkness from herself and project a sense of security and confidence through her hands. Elina’s hands shiver beneath her own as Charlie swallows her doubts and unease, trying to push Elina up with a false display of strength.

  They sit in silence for a while, and though the Narwhal is anything but homey, there is some shred of comfort that they find in each other.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Bill enters the room, his own face stoic. “Dinner’s ready,” he calls to them, “whenever you’re ready.”

  Charlie takes a deep breath and forces a smile to her face as she stands up. Elina follows, and they join Bill on the walk back to the mess hall.

  Bill sees the fake smile on Charlie’s face and knows that Max’s comment earlier in the day was only a half-truth. Charlie was brave but only brave enough to put up an act. He tries it himself to some degree, though Lewis is the real champion. His farce was trained, something he had practiced, and at times he wondered if it might be real. But it wasn’t, and Bill knew that well, so did everyone else. The desire to appear strong was primal, and whether or not people fully believed it, it remained. Even a fake projection of strength can be powerful. It helped to maintain a sense of normalcy, and that was valuable even if it was a lie. In much the same way that currency maintains value only because people choose to believe in it, so too does the facade of will hold worth. It was their attempts, and in the case of those like Lewis and Charlie, successes, at wearing these masks that held everyone together, that kept them just a little saner.

  Bill, Charlie, and Elina walk to the mess hall together, the darkness of the corridor presenting one silver lining in that it keeps their anxieties hidden from view.

  Thump.

  Their dinner is less than a meal. The small ration is just enough to keep them going, but far from filling. But nobody complains. Nobody’s burning calories anyway, as the submarine crew has little to do but maintain the status quo, and for the researchers, there’s nothing at all. As they finish their meals, there’s no rush to get back to work, no push to do anything at all. The only thing keeping them from slipping into a depression-fueled boredom is the spine-tingling malaise that captures their minds and keeps them on the edge of panic. The books, card games, and other forms of entertainment go unused, as nobody can concentrate on anything so trivial. The night is long, many find themselves lying in bed, afraid to sleep, but without anything else to do.

  Charlie scribbles small doodles onto the table, not having moved in the hours since she ate her dinner. Her black pen etches fish, and whales, and seahorses into the fake wood patterned plastic. She’s barely even conscious of it, too distracted to really pay attention. She draws the ocean, coral, seashells. Her eyes even stray from her work at times, drawn away by other thoughts. She draws the Narwhal. Even as something meant to be a distraction, to take up mental space and push out the bleak reality, it fails, as Charlie’s mind spins in agitation. She draws the pit, the deep chasm from which Julia emerged. She presses the pen into the table, gouging scratches into its surface as she fills the hole with black ink. Spiraling around and around, the black circle grows. It engulfs her other doodles; the fish, the whales, the Narwhal.

  “Charlie!”

  A hand falls onto her shoulder, a voice penetrating her stupor and pulling her to her senses.

  “Zoned out?” Bill stands over her. “Why don’t you try and get some sleep? You looked halfway there anyway, I called your name like four times.”

  Charlie shakes her head. “Sorry, I was...drawing.”

  She looks down at the table, not really remembering much of her dazed drawing of the pit.

  “I see that,” Bill says. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to draw on the furniture?”

  Bill chuckles, trying to inject a bit of humor into the atmosphere.

  Charlie smirks. “Sorry, were you planning to take this table back with us when we got out of here?”

  “Maybe. Recoup some of the losses we’ve dropped into the agency’s lap.”

  “I think they’ll cut you some slack. Besides, I don’t think that whoever comes to rescue us is gonna wanna double as a moving company. You’ll probably have to leave the furniture.”

  “Damn, you think? Was hoping to take my bed at least, I’ve gotten so used to it, I doubt I can go back to the one I’ve got at home.”

  “You’ve been sleeping?”

  “Oh no, I just like to jump on it.”

  They try to inject some of their old world into the new with their banter. The back and forth, fun conversation they had developed after years of working together was familiar, and for a moment, it was nice, a pleasant moment in the hell they now found themselves in. But that moment dies before they even finish the conversation. Their enthusiasm for it drains away, like the sea itself sucks it from their souls. And in the silence that follows, as their minds return to the dark, and the whales, and the Narwhal, Charlie furrows her brow.

  “What’s up?” Bill asks, noticing her changed expression.

  They’re alone in the mess hall now. At some point during Charlie’s doodling, she had failed to notice that everyone else had shuffled off to some other corner of the ship, leaving her alone until Bill came along. There weren’t any distant conversations echoing through the metal corridors--a few pattering footsteps and occasional groan of the hull. but that was all background noise anyway. It was stuff they’d grown accustomed to hearing and had tuned out unless they were listening for it. What surprises Charlie, is the lack of any sound that was attention-getting, because for all intents and purposes, the ship and the sea around it, is silent, which was not normal.

  “How long has it been since you heard her?” Charlie asks.

  Bill’s eyes turn down, he pauses, listening for a moment and thinking back. “I--I don’t remember.”

  “Neither do I,” she replies. “I only just noticed how quiet it was.”

  “She stopped.”

  Bill stands up, waits another moment, listening, almost hoping to hear Julia’s thumping against the ice. Though each time she hit the ice, it sent a shiver down his spine, he almost wanted to hear it now, because the alternative was a change in her behavior, and that terrified him.

  With no sound coming to his ears, Bill looks at Charlie. “Let’s go. Upstairs.”

  The two file out of the mess hall and make their way up to the control room. Lewis is at the entrance, waiting for them.

  “You don’t miss a beat, huh?” Bill asks.

  “Nothing gets past these ears,” Lewis responds.

  “Got anything on passive sonar? Or the hydrophones?” Bill asks.

  He walks over to the station where he and the ship’s sonar operator listened for Julia after launching the hydrophones. Reina is already in the seat. She pulls off the headphones and turns to him.

  “You’ll want to hear this,” she says.

  Bill takes a seat and slips the headphones on over his head. Closing his eyes, he listens, and this time, he hears it right away. Something big is moving in the water.

  Bill swallows, though his mouth is dry. “I think she’s coming this way.”

  He opens his eyes.

  “Why though?” Charlie asks. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “She’s been at it for a while. Maybe she just gave up.”

  “And what?” Lewis asks. “She’s coming back here, why? We’ve been dead quiet since she was here last.”

  Bill shrugs. “Well, before she started banging on the ice, she was here. She’s coming back to the last thing she was doing. Maybe.”

  “Don’t like that one bit,” Lewis says. “We can’t try the same trick again, damn near got us killed last time.”

  Lewis starts pacing again. He grumbles and smacks the side of his head like he’s trying to get an old engine to start.

  “Sir?” Harley waits for his captain to act.

  Lewis takes a deep breath. “We’re just gonna have to go quiet, silent running. If we can keep a low profile, maybe she’ll leave us alone. Where is everyone?”

  “Got a few men out and about, reactor, torpedo room,” Harley replies. “Everyone else turned in for the night.”

  “Same for us,” Bill says, “I think everyone’s in the bunks.”

  Lewis nods. “Harley, I don’t wanna use the intercom, get down and tell our working guys to keep quiet. Charlie, I want you to go to the bunks, same thing, absolutely silent. Not a peep. Bill, you stay on those hydrophones, make sure we know what she’s up to.”

  Charlie and Harley nod and leave the control room, Charlie heading to the next level down, Harley descending one further. The rest of the crew turn their heads to Bill, watching as he slips the headphones back on and starts listening again.

  Charlie slips into the bunks and glances into the beds. There’s little need for her to tell anyone to stay quiet; the room is already dead silent. Some are sleeping fitfully, but those who are truly quiet are awake, sitting or lying in bed without a peep. Jessica catches Charlie’s eye as she enters the room.

  “It’s coming back isn’t it?” Jessica asks, her eyes pleading for an answer contrary to her assumption.

  Charlie nods, responding in a whisper. “How’d you know?”

  Jessica shakes her head. “Just a feeling,” she whimpers.

  “Lewis wants everyone quiet,” Charlie continues, addressing anyone in the room who’s awake. “Hopefully she’ll pass over.”

  “Better chance she kills us all,” Jessica says.

  Ernie sits up, his bunk lying above his sister’s, and leans over the side to look at her. “Don’t say that. We’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Jessica barks. “It’s not like I can do anything. We’re all just sitting here waiting to die.”

  “Alright, everyone,” Piper’s voice breaks into the conversation, “you heard Charlie, zip it.”

  “Might be best to try and stay awake too,” James adds, “waking up from a nightmare screaming won’t help us any.”

  Charlie debates heading back to the control room, and under normal circumstances she probably would. But her natural curiosity is waning--or being drained by current events. She doesn’t want to go back up, all she really wants is sleep, but not here, not now. She wants to sleep above sea level, on solid earth, in her own bed. Here, on the Narwhal, sleep is less than appealing. So she sits down on her bunk, feet dangling over the edge. She flicks off her flashlight, plunging the room into a pitch blackness, and listens.

  Upstairs, Bill sits with his hands cupped over his headphones. “She’s close now,” he says. “Coming in pretty slow though.”

  “Welp, we ain’t going nowhere,” Lewis replies.

  Bill purses his lips and waits and Lewis holds his breath as the behemoth outside moves in. She approaches the Narwhal, circling once, and then she calls out. Bill rips the headphones from his head as the volume immediately leaves his ears ringing. The submarine’s hull vibrates with the intensity of the bellow. Julia sings her deep, unforgettable song for a full minute before it fades.

  Even without the headphones, without the hydrophones, Bill can hear her circling above them. But he puts them back on anyway to get a clearer understanding of her movement. He sighs and scratches at his beard. Julia’s movement is odd, she’s not moving like a fish, or a cephalopod, or any animal he knows. It’s erratic, uneven. The way she displaces water, the sounds that she makes while swimming, it seems to his ears that she has no uniform direction in which she chooses to move, in fact, it sounds like she’s moving in more than one direction at once. But Bill doesn’t have much time to concentrate and paint himself a better picture, as another sound catches his attention.

  There’s a weird crackling from his headphones, something he hasn’t heard before. Bill taps the headphones, wondering if it might be static, some issue with the tech. It wouldn’t surprise him, given how damaged the ship is, but then it happens again. Half a minute passes and another brief, but defined, pulse of static comes through, then another, and another. It’s only after a couple of minutes have passed, and more than a few staticky snaps, that he understands what’s happening just beyond the walls of the Narwhal.

  Bill comes to realize that with each buzzing pop in his ears, he has a harder and harder time making out the noises of the sea around them, including Julia. He had gotten so concentrated listening for the crackles, that he didn’t realize he was losing sound definition. The auditory picture he’s pieced together by the circle of hydrophones is degrading, and he quickly understands that it’s because the hydrophones are failing. One by one, the circle of listening devices are being knocked out.

  With a confused look plastered on his face, mouth hanging open, Bill comes to the conclusion that Julia is circling the ship, knocking out the hydrophones one by one. With each buzzing pop in his ears, he finds it more difficult to track her movements, until finally, he hears nothing at all. Bill takes the headphones off and sets them in his lap.

  Lewis raises an eyebrow, waiting for an update.

  Bill shakes his head, then whispers, “she took out the hydrophones. All of them.”

  The two look up, through the metal ceiling hanging above their heads. Just beyond their senses, but right in front of them, Julia has methodically taken out their only method to track her. They listen as the familiar sound of something gently caressing the outside of the sub returns, traveling down the length of the Narwhal. And then it stops, there’s the sound of water surging, and Julia swims away.

  For a minute, nobody speaks. Silence lays heavy over the room as they wait to ensure that she’s really gone.

  Lewis is first to break the silence. “What the fuck are we dealing with?” he whispers.