The Presence

CHAPTER 7

“You sure this is a good idea?” Michael asked again. He, Josh Malani, Jeff Kina, and two other guys from the track team — Rick Pieper and someone named Kioki, whose last name Michael didn’t remember — had grabbed hamburgers, fries, and Cokes at a place called Peggy Sue’s. As they ate, Josh explained how they would equip themselves at Kihei Ken’s Dive Shop: “He leaves the key under the barrel behind the back door.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Michael asked, though by now he thought he knew Josh well enough to be certain that whatever peculiar illogic his friend might come up with, he would manage to make it sound reasonable.

“Ken’s my friend, and he’d say it was okay.”

“Why don’t you just call him and ask him?” Michael asked, which only netted him one of Josh’s patented looks of complete scorn.

“He’s off-island, for Christ’s sake. He’s over on Lanai and won’t be back till tomorrow. Come on, Mike, don’t give me a hard time! I’m your best friend.”

“You’re also crazy,” Michael reminded him.

Josh’s affable grin spread wide. “That’s not news. But you still saved my life, so I wouldn’t mess you up, would I?”

At the time, the final logic had seemed impeccable. Now that he was actually standing at the back door of Ken’s Dive Shop with three guys he’d known only since that afternoon, and one good friend who was — according to everyone who had known him a lot longer than Michael — certifiably crazy, he wasn’t so sure.

What if an alarm went off?

What if they got caught?

What if they got taken to jail?

But even as the questions rose in Michael’s mind, Josh Malani fished the key out from under the barrel in back, unlocked the door, and flipped on the lights.

“Jeez, Josh! Shut off the lights!” Jeff Kina demanded.

“Why?” Josh asked. “We’re not doing anything wrong. Come on in and help me find what we need.”

It didn’t take nearly as long as Michael thought it would: within ten minutes they had enough gear for all five of them in the bed of Josh’s truck. But as Jeff Kina started loading air tanks, he swore.

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked.

“There’s only one full tank,” Jeff said. “Any of you guys know how to work the compressor?”

Everyone shook their heads and shrugged helplessly, and Michael felt a moment of relief, thinking they might have to bag the whole plan. But just as he was about to suggest they haul the gear back in from the truck, Josh found five more tanks on a shelf next to the door that separated the back room from the shop. His new friends loaded four of them into the truck, with the full tank from the first batch of tanks they found, then the boys all piled in.

They drove south on Kihei Road, through Wailea and out past Makena Beach. The road narrowed and grew bumpy, and finally they came to a tiny cove where the water glittered in the light of an almost full moon. Michael began to relax, then realized Josh wasn’t going to stop. “What was wrong with that bay?” he asked, peering back over his shoulder. Even in the darkness, the inlet looked reasonably safe.

“LaPerrouse?” Josh asked. “That’s for tourists. We’re goin’ to the goldfish bowl.”

They kept moving farther south. Finally, the dense thickets of kiawe that lined both sides of the road gave way to what at first looked to Michael like a huge field of freshly plowed earth, hundreds of acres of it, spreading away from the road in both directions. Then he realized he wasn’t looking at a field of earth at all: he was looking at raw lava.

Lava so desolate that practically nothing grew on it. In the darkness, it held a forbidding aura that made him shiver despite the warmth of the air.

They were deep into the lava field when Josh pulled the truck off the road into a narrow parking area.

Michael looked around, seeing nothing but the vast expanse of lava. “Where’s the goldfish bowl?” he asked.

“At the end of the flow,” Josh told him. “There’s a path a little farther down the road, but this is as close as you can park to it. Practically nobody knows about it.” The five boys scrambled out of the truck, slung their air tanks onto their backs, and picked up the bags they’d filled with regulators, masks, fins, and life vests. Josh led them down the road two hundred yards, then stepped over a pipe that ran parallel to the asphalt pavement.

“What’s that?” Michael asked.

“Water pipe,” Jeff Kina told him. “It’s too hard to bury it in the lava, so they just lay it along the surface next to the road.”

They were picking their way through the lava now, but Michael saw no sign of anything that looked like a path until they came to a sign that warned them against overnight camping. “This is really a path?” he asked as he gingerly made his way across lava that looked sharp enough to slash him if he so much as touched it.

“That’s the neat thing,” Josh explained. “If you don’t know exactly where it is, you can’t find it.”

“I know where it is, and most of the time I still can’t find it,” Rick Pieper muttered. “Last time I came out here, I almost tore my feet off.”

“Quit bitchin’,” Kioki told him. “It’s easy.” Then, a second later, he lost his balance, instinctively put a hand out to steady himself, and howled in pain. “Goddamn it, I hate this stuff!”

“So go back and wait in the truck,” Josh told him.

“No chance,” Kioki shot back. “I’m okay.”

Forty minutes later they came to a small cove that was almost completely landlocked by a long tongue of lava that protected it from the open ocean. While the pool itself lay serenely still, no more than twenty feet away the heaving sea clawed at the embracing arm of rock. It was as if a hungry animal were attempting to dig its prey out of a protective burrow. The surf snarled, and angry fountains of foam spewed into the sky like the anticipatory saliva of a beast about to feed. For a long time Michael stared at the spectacle, wondering how safe the pool really was.

“It’s okay,” Josh Malani told him, once again accurately reading his thoughts. “There’s only one channel into the pool, and it’s over on the other side, in the lee. There’s hardly even any current, and I won’t be more than a couple yards away from you. Okay?”

Michael nodded, still unsure if he wanted to go into the water, which seemed to have darkened even as he stared at it. He told himself it was only his imagination, since the moon was shining as brightly as ever. The other guys were already stripping their clothes off, and soon all of them were naked and helping each other strap on their tanks and check their regulators. Then, one by one, they went into the pool, until only Michael and Josh were still on the beach.

“You want to skip it?” Josh asked. There was nothing of his usual mocking tone now, and Michael guessed that if he decided to chicken out, Josh would make sure the other boys thought it was his own idea to stay out of the water. In fact, he suspected Josh might even go as far as to slash his foot on the lava, if he thought that’s what it would take to convince everyone that Michael hadn’t lost his nerve.

He looked at the water once more, then punched Josh on the shoulder. “Let’s do it,” he said.

They backed in until they were up to their waists, then Michael checked his regulator one last time, lowered himself, stretched out, and rolled over.

The water closed around him, and, as it had on his first dive, the world changed.

It was nothing like the daytime dive. The sunlight was gone, and with it the Day-Glo colors of the coral and the fish. Now the water was infused with a silvery glow from the moon, and the fish that darted among the shadows of the pool appeared as no more than phantoms. Here and there phosphorescent creatures glowed, and occasionally a fish glimmered brightly as the moonlight caught its scales.

Josh Malani turned on a flashlight, and everything changed once more. The ocean came alive with creatures attracted by the light, and the water that only a moment ago seemed populated by nothing more than a few ghostly floating shapes was transformed into a whirling kaleidoscope of lemon tangs, damselfish, and butterfly fish. Beyond the brilliant cone emanating from Josh’s flashlight, there was only an inky blackness, and suddenly Michael wished Josh hadn’t turned on the light at all. He was about to signal Josh to turn it off when a large shape drifted into the light, startling Michael for a moment before he recognized it as a sea turtle. The turtle swam gracefully toward them, hovered in the light for a few seconds, then turned away, disappearing into the surrounding darkness. Maneuvering close to Josh, Michael motioned for him to kill the light, and a second later both boys were plunged momentarily into total blackness.

Michael’s night vision slowly returned as the pale glow of moonlight filtered through the curtain of black. With Josh just ahead of him, Michael drifted through the water, feeling lazily disconnected from the world beyond the crystalline basin. The water was no more than fifteen feet deep, and even in the dim moonlight the bottom was clearly visible. The tendrils of anemones waved gently in the nearly still water, and the dark spines of sea urchins protruded from holes in the lava.

Time seemed to slow as the ghostly shapes of fish floated around him.

A large sea snail crept along the lava floor of the pool, antennae extended, mantle partially covering its bright shell. Michael dove deeper, intent on getting a closer look at the snail, when something else attracted his attention.

There was a crevice in the lava, with something protruding from it.

Michael changed course, moved closer to the crevice, then recognized what he was seeing.

A moray eel! Its rows of sharp teeth glistened in the moonlight as it slowly flexed its jaw.

Carefully, trying to move slowly enough not to disturb the eel, Michael inched closer.

The eel, seeing him coming, opened its jaw wide. Its entire body seemed to tense.

It waited, watching, ready to strike.

Josh Malani hovered about six feet beneath the surface, watching an octopus that appeared to be staring right back at him. Twice he’d reached out to try to touch the small cephalopod, but each time it shrank away from him, and Josh had the eerie sense that the little creature felt as strange in the moonlit water as he did himself. The fact was, he kind of wanted to turn the flashlight back on, if for no other reason than to regain the sense of familiarity that the bright colors of the coral and the fish would bring him. Being in the dark was kind of like wandering in a graveyard: he was sure there wasn’t anything in the pool that could really hurt him, but the shadowy water alone was enough to make him nervous. Thus, when the first touch came, he was so startled he almost yanked on his emergency cord.

Then he realized it had to be Michael, letting him know he was there.

Then the second touch came.

Not gentle like the first, but sharp — as if claws had raked across his side.

Reflexively jerking away, Josh once again had to resist the instinctive urge to jerk on the emergency cord that would release the CO2 cartridge, inflating his life vest and shooting him to the surface. Forcing himself not to give in to the surge of panic that shot through him at the clawing touch, he twisted around in the water, searching for the source of the attack.

At first he saw nothing. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a shape moving toward him. For an instant he felt the strictures of panic close once more around him. But then he realized what the shape was.

A turtle! Nothing but the sea turtle coming back for another look at the odd-looking creatures that had invaded its environment. Probably the same one he and Michael had seen a little while ago.

Michael!

Where was he? Josh looked quickly around but saw no sign of his friend. He’d just been there, right behind him, just a couple of feet to the right!

Hadn’t he?

Suddenly he remembered the octopus. How long had he been watching it? You tended to lose track of time underwater; everyone did. And the darkness only made it worse. Damn! How long had it been since he’d actually seen Michael?

Josh twisted frantically in the water now, searching for a glimpse of Michael. What the hell had he been thinking of, bringing Michael out here in the middle of the night? Just because Michael had managed to pull him out of the reef didn’t make him an expert diver! He should have known better. And he sure shouldn’t have let Michael out of his sight, even for a second.

He switched on his flashlight and shined it around.

Nothing.

Now he aimed the beam downward, raking it back and forth across the bottom, silently praying that when the light picked Michael out of the darkness, he would be moving, not just—

Before the words could form in Josh’s mind, he saw him.

Michael was twenty to twenty-five feet off to the left, and ten or twelve feet below. And he was moving.

Josh’s panic subsiding now that he’d located Michael, he automatically sucked in a breath of air in preparation for the dive down to make sure his friend was all right.

But the familiar pressure from the regulator had disappeared, as if the tank had run out of air. That didn’t make any sense — they’d only been in the water for maybe forty minutes, and the tank should have held enough air for an hour.

Unless it hadn’t been full when they’d started.

But he’d checked it! He could distinctly remember checking the tank he was wearing, as well as Michael’s and Jeff Kina’s.

He looked down again. Was Michael really moving?

Suddenly he couldn’t tell.

What if Michael had run out of air, too?

What if he’d forgotten what to do, and panicked?

His fear for Michael flooding back, Josh reached back and jerked the lever over to the reserve position, then frantically dived down toward Michael. He was just coming into the murky part of the water when he saw Michael drop his weights and pull the cord that activated the CO2 cartridge on his life vest. The vest instantly inflated, and Michael popped to the surface, shooting past Josh. Not bothering with his own emergency cord, Josh swam quickly to the surface, pulling the regulator out of his mouth the second his head popped out of the water.

“You okay?” he asked. But even in the dim light he could see that something had happened to Michael.

“I–I think so,” Michael stammered. “I just — I don’t know — all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe!”

“Damn it!” Josh Malani exclaimed. “Let me see your gauge.” He maneuvered himself around behind Michael, switched on the flashlight, and shined it on the gauge. “It’s the damned tanks,” he told Michael. “Mine’s running out, too! I was going down to get you when you pulled the cord. Let’s get back to the beach and make sure the other guys are okay.”

Inflating his own vest to make swimming on the surface easier, Josh started toward the beach, keeping pace with Michael. It wasn’t until they were scrambling out of the water onto the beach that they saw Jeff Kina trying to get a small pile of kiawe burning in a makeshift fire pit.

“What happened?” Josh asked. “How come you’re out already? You’re always down till you start breathing water.”

“And that wasn’t very long ago,” Jeff replied. “The gauge said the tank was full when I went in, but I ran out of air ten minutes ago.” He scowled in the moonlight, then glared at the offending tank. “And we can’t even complain to Ken about it, since he didn’t exactly rent this stuff to us!” He struck another match. The small pile of kindling under the kiawe branches sputtered, then burst into flame.

A few minutes later, as the fire crept up through the kiawe, which burned brighter every minute, Rick and Kioki emerged from the water, too. “What happened to you guys?” they asked.

Josh shrugged. “Tanks weren’t full.”

Kioki frowned. “Yours, too? I figured it was only mine.”

Rick Pieper glanced at his buddy. “What are you talking about? You had trouble, too?”

Kioki nodded. “I think the gauge on mine was screwed up. I had to switch over to the emergency real early on.”

“Why didn’t you give me a signal?” Rick demanded. “My air supply was okay. Jeez, Kioki, if we’d been down deep, you coulda been in real trouble.”

An expression of sudden fear came over Michael’s face, and Josh spoke quickly. “But we weren’t deep. We’re all fine, and all we have to do is put this crap back in the dive shop and make sure that next time everything works right. Okay?” He looked from one face to another, as if daring anyone to challenge him.

“Don’t you think we ought to tell Ken?” Rick finally ventured.

“Tell him what?” Josh demanded. “That we snuck in and borrowed his stuff?” His voice took on that edge of sarcasm already familiar to Michael. “That’d be a real good idea, wouldn’t it?”

“So what do we do?” Jeff Kina asked.

Josh shrugged. “What we were always planning to do. Nothing happened, so we take the stuff back, clean it up, and go home. Or do you all want Ken calling the cops on us?”

As they moved closer to the fire, letting its warmth drive the chill of the water out of their bodies, no one said anything.

No one had to.

Michael gazed past the campfire’s flames at the dark pool of water, and shivered as he realized how close to danger they had come.

But nothing had happened. He hadn’t panicked, and he’d gotten the weights off, and …

And he wished he’d never come on this dive.