There was a time, starting at the age of 14/15 where I was a scuba diver. I’d still be one, but children, money and vacation time all get in the way when you’re an adult. But having been a diver, I feel like this book holds a particularly chilling place in my heart. So first, I have to ask you, do you like horror? Oh you do? Excellent! This book is for you! How about The Thing (it happens to be my favorite movie)?YOU DO? TWINSIES!!! Then you will love this book. How about Jaws? Yup, you’ll like it!! If you don’t like any of those things, don’t even bother reading my words, this is not your cup of tea…which is fine.
Ok, so the book starts the way any decent horror book or movie does, by introducing us to and making us care about the people we’re supposed to care about, be wary of the people with bad agendas and worry about what is in that damn ocean that is killing people! There are quite a few characters but I’ll sum it up like this, a woman and her estranged father are on the trip because they want answers as to what happened to her sister/his daughter Debi. Also on the boat is a crazy rapist murderer, a crazy meglomaniacal ship owner in search of gold, a lovely woman who seems withdrawn, a hot dive captain and his best friend and a couple of other people (I think maybe just one more…a lawyer?). Anyways, all of them have their own agendas for being there, some not bad, some pretty bad, some really terrible. As with many horror movies and books they tend to be morality tales and so right off the bat, you know who probably might make it and who might not…but then again? Sometimes no one makes it. I’ll never tell.
After finding a corpse in a wetsuit holding a gold coin they are forced by the ship owner to investigate. To do this, they have to do a pretty technical dive which all passengers were woefully ill-prepared for (either by experience or equipment) each member of the dive experiences creepy things. Schools of fish, rather than being curious begin to attack on the line down, people are seeing things (things that couldn’t possibly be there), and there is the possibility of massive treasure. Could this all be stacked up to be nitrogen narcosis? (which my friends, is a very real thing. I once tried to swim straight into the sand instead of going up). Or is there something otherworldly at work? Or is it a creature that we’ve yet to discover? The ocean is less explored than the Moon. Well, I’m not going to tell you what’s at work here, but if you like a decent easy horror read? This is a fun, face-paced read.
I leave you with a “sweet” Werner Herzog quote to help you sleep the next time you’re on a beach vacation:
“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”