“And it’s here?” Hallie sounded less horrified than resigned.
“She’s right below us,” said Tory. Maybe Anne’s bones were there too, cradled in the belly of the beast, a finned, living graveyard moving through the ocean like a promise of destruction.
“Tory?” Olivia’s voice, back in her ear. “I turned them on. Are you okay?”
Tory took in a shaky breath, letting out a brief burst of laughter that dissolved into a cough. “I hope I am,” she said. “I hope we are.” She leaned against the wall, eyes still closed. “How’re you?”
Olivia’s laughter was even shakier than her own. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Never going to eat sushi again.”
Tory laughed, and Olivia laughed, and the lights of the Melusine blazed into the sea, bright as daylight, chasing the monsters away.
CHAPTER 38
Western Pacific Ocean: September 5, 2022
Help arrived two days later, just after dawn, in the form of the USS Datlow, a naval ship that had been patrolling nearby waters when the Melusine began broadcasting her distress call. They were horrified to find the ship sitting silent in the water, shields covered in slime and strange puncture marks. They were even more horrified when they boarded and discovered the nightmare waiting for them in the halls.
Blood and bodies and slime and most of all, the sirens themselves, dead or dying, huddled in corners, struggling to breathe through gills that had long since dried out, leaving them with no chance of survival. The human survivors crept out of hiding at the sound of boots stomping down the decks, terrified, traumatized scientists clutching their research and greeting their saviors with haunted eyes.
Dr. Toth was the only one to smile when her lab door swung open to reveal the sailors who had come to save her. “What took you so long?” she asked, as behind her Holly continued to work and Luis began, helplessly, to laugh.
“Who is in command here?” asked the man at the head of their formation.
“Mermaids ate the captain, so I guess he is,” said Luis, hooking a thumb at Mr. Blackwell. “Better let him sober up before you try to question him. He’s pretty stoned. His wife sort of lied to him about the drugs she was using to make his leg feel better.”
“Gentlemen,” said Theo, and smiled.
In the control room, Olivia ceded the controls while Daryl and Gregory laughed in confusion and delight at their own survival.
In the medical bay, Drs. Vail and Odom reviewed the list of injuries with their rescuers, demanding the medical supplies they’d run out of, which they still needed to save lives.
In the pool room, Hallie closed the door to Mr. Blackwell’s private lab, knowing without being told that if she wanted the siren that had saved them to survive, she needed to hide it. Together she and Daniel supported Tory on their shoulders, and the three of them walked toward the stairs, heading out of the darkness and into the light.
Below the Melusine, deep and descending deeper, the matriarch swam. She had been close to a healthy feeding when the brightness had come, searing her sensitive eyes, turning her away. She had eaten a full dozen of the males in her anger, and would eat a dozen more before she could be soothed. They knew her anger for the terror that it was. They teemed around her in a great cloud, throwing human bodies into her path for her terrible jaws to claim, darting away before she could inhale and take them as well.
Her biology was not so novel as to be unique in the ocean, although her size was; she had outlived and outlasted most of the creatures on her scale, thanks in no small part to the efforts of her helpers, the small, swift males, which brought her food when she could not rise to take it for herself. She and her kind had endured for millions of years. They would endure for millions more.
They had, after all, nothing but time.
EPILOGUE
Kahului, Hawaii: September 15, 2022
I see. Thank you.”
Jim Alway set the phone gently back into its cradle before turning to face his team. They were watching him with guarded eyes, hopeful and wary in equal measure. His smile, when it came, did nothing to lessen their wariness.
“The Melusine will be docking in six hours for repair and refueling,” he said. “The package is being delivered. Get ready.”
The team—oceanographers, cetologists, zookeepers, security guards—scattered as Alway turned his eyes back toward the window that dominated his office wall, providing him with a panoramic view of the ocean around them. From the sea humanity had come; to the sea humanity would always return. In the meantime, men like him would always find a way to profit from what the water offered. Let the conservationists and the bleeding hearts take his whales. His mermaid was being delivered.
At long last, all things were going to be dragged out of the darkness of the deeps, and out into the living light of day.
Two hundred miles offshore, in a small cabin surrounded by damaged steel and the survivors of a voyage that had been damned from the beginning, two women lay tangled in one another’s arms, adrift in a sea of tangled sheets. The ship’s whistle blew, signaling their proximity to shore. Neither of them woke. Each, in her own way, was far away: Olivia running forever through a ship of ghosts, trying to save what had already been lost, and Tory swimming through the frigid water, lured on, ever on, by the dancing, impossible light of the lovely ladies of the sea.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
No book is written in a vacuum: as always I must thank the people who helped me to make this one the best it could be.
My usual Machete Squad was on hand with helpful suggestions and even more helpful demands: Brooke Abbey, Michelle Dockrey, Alexis Nast, Torrey Stenmark, Amanda Weinstein, and the rest of this strange motley crew kept me honest and kept me eager to see what was around the next bend, which is vital when putting together a puzzle as large and complex as this one. Lauren Panepinto’s covers are a delight beyond measure, and knowing that I would get one when I was finished meant that I never lost sight of the prize. And all the aquarium employees who were willing to talk about mermaids with me, well … I’m so sorry.
Rebecca Williams was a new addition to our review process for this book, and she provided essential, story-changing information. My biggest thanks are for her.
During the writing of this book, I accomplished a life goal I had been moving toward for several years, relocating from Northern California (which is on fire again as I write this) to the Pacific Northwest (which is decidedly not on fire). The actual move took place while I was on a book tour, and my mother, Micki McGuire, and my dear friend Kate Secor were rock stars of the cause. Mom handled most of the move all by herself, while Kate made sure my cats were safely taken care of. They are both amazing.
(The cats are fine. Alice sulked for all of five minutes once we got her to the new house, while Thomas was clingy and shy for a few weeks, but has calmed down completely. I know I don’t usually provide cat statuses here. In this specific case, it seemed like a good idea.)
Because the move was so big, and so all-consuming, I want to also thank Sarah Kuhn, Amber Benson, Randall Mulholland, Charlaine Harris, Amanda Weinstein, Michael Ellis, Merav Hoffman, Jon Lennox, Terry Kearney, Nikki Purvis, and Caroline Ratajski, as well as my entire Overwatch team, for their patience and tolerance over this past stretch of time. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m reasonably sure it’s not a giant bioluminescent predator.
My soundtrack for this book consisted of a great deal of Cake Bake Betty and the Counting Crows, as well as the full musical version of Hadestown. All errors are mine, and I am reasonably pleased with them.
Watch out for the water. You never know what might be down there.
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extras
meet the author
Photo Credit: Becket Gladney
Bestselling author Mira Grant lives in Washington,
sleeps with a machete under her bed, and highly suggests you do the same. Mira Grant is the pseudonym of Hugo, Nebula, and Alex Award–winning author Seanan McGuire.
if you enjoyed
INTO THE DROWNING DEEP
look out for
FEED
by
MIRA GRANT
The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.
Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives—the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.
Feed is the electrifying and critically acclaimed novel of a world a half-step from our own—a novel of geeks, zombies, politics, and social media.
One
Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot—in this case, my brother Shaun—deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens. As if we didn’t already know what happens when you mess with a zombie: The zombie turns around and bites you, and you become the thing you poked. This isn’t a surprise. It hasn’t been a surprise for more than twenty years, and if you want to get technical, it wasn’t a surprise then.
When the infected first appeared—heralded by screams that the dead were rising and judgment day was at hand— they behaved just like the horror movies had been telling us for decades that they would behave. The only surprise was that this time, it was really happening.
There was no warning before the outbreaks began. One day, things were normal; the next, people who were supposedly dead were getting up and attacking anything that came into range. This was upsetting for everyone involved, except for the infected, who were past being upset about that sort of thing. The initial shock was followed by running and screaming, which eventually devolved into more infection and attacking, that being the way of things. So what do we have now, in this enlightened age twenty-six years after the Rising? We have idiots prodding zombies with sticks, which brings us full circle to my brother and why he probably won’t live a long and fulfilling life.
“Hey, George, check this out!” he shouted, giving the zombie another poke in the chest with his hockey stick. The zombie gave a low moan, swiping at him ineffectually. It had obviously been in a state of full viral amplification for some time and didn’t have the strength or physical dexterity left to knock the stick out of Shaun’s hands. I’ll give Shaun this much: He knows not to bother the fresh ones at close range. “We’re playing patty-cake!”
“Stop antagonizing the locals and get back on the bike,” I said, glaring from behind my sunglasses. His current buddy might be sick enough to be nearing its second, final death, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a healthier pack roaming the area. Santa Cruz is zombie territory. You don’t go there unless you’re suicidal, stupid, or both. There are times when even I can’t guess which of those options applies to Shaun.
“Can’t talk right now! I’m busy making friends with the locals!”
“Shaun Phillip Mason, you get back on this bike right now, or I swear to God, I am going to drive away and leave you here.”
Shaun looked around, eyes bright with sudden interest as he planted the end of his hockey stick at the center of the zombie’s chest to keep it at a safe distance. “Really? You’d do that for me? Because ‘My Sister Abandoned Me in Zombie Country Without a Vehicle’ would make a great article.”
“A posthumous one, maybe,” I snapped. “Get back on the goddamn bike!”
“In a minute!” he said, laughing, and turned back toward his moaning friend.
In retrospect, that’s when everything started going wrong.
The pack had probably been stalking us since before we hit the city limits, gathering reinforcements from all over the county as they approached. Packs of infected get smarter and more dangerous the larger they become. Groups of four or less are barely a threat unless they can corner you, but a pack of twenty or more stands a good chance of breaching any barrier the uninfected try to put up. You get enough of the infected together and they’ll start displaying pack hunting techniques; they’ll start using actual tactics. It’s like the virus that’s taken them over starts to reason when it gets enough hosts in the same place. It’s scary as hell, and it’s just about the worst nightmare of anyone who regularly goes into zombie territory—getting cornered by a large group that knows the land better than you do.
These zombies knew the land better than we did, and even the most malnourished and virus-ridden pack knows how to lay an ambush. A low moan echoed from all sides, and then they were shambling into the open, some moving with the slow lurch of the long infected, others moving at something close to a run. The runners led the pack, cutting off three of the remaining methods of escape before there was time to do more than stare. I looked at them and shuddered.
Fresh infected—really fresh ones—still look almost like the people that they used to be. Their faces show emotion, and they move with a jerkiness that could just mean they slept wrong the night before. It’s harder to kill something that still looks like a person, and worst of all, the bastards are fast. The only thing more dangerous than a fresh zombie is a pack of them, and counted at least eighteen before I realized that it didn’t matter, and stopped bothering.
I grabbed my helmet and shoved it on without fastening the strap. If the bike went down, dying because my helmet didn’t stay on would be one of the better options. I’d reanimate, but at least I wouldn’t be aware of it. “Shaun!”
Shaun whipped around, staring at the emerging zombies. “Whoa.”
Unfortunately for Shaun, the addition of that many zombies had turned his buddy from a stupid solo into part of a thinking mob. The zombie grabbed the hockey stick as soon as Shaun’s attention was focused elsewhere, yanking it out of his hands. Shaun staggered forward and the zombie latched onto his cardigan, withered fingers locking down with deceptive strength. It hissed. I screamed, images of my inevitable future as an only child filling my mind.
“Shaun!” One bite and things would get a lot worse. There’s not much worse than being cornered by a pack of zombies in downtown Santa Cruz. Losing Shaun would qualify.
The fact that my brother convinced me to take a dirt bike into zombie territory doesn’t make me an idiot. I was wearing full off-road body armor, including a leather jacket with steel armor joints attached at the elbows and shoulders, a Kevlar vest, motorcycling pants with hip and knee protectors, and calf-high riding boots. It’s bulky as hell, and I don’t care, because once you factor in my gloves, my throat’s the only target I present in the field.
Shaun, on the other hand, is a moron and had gone zombie baiting in nothing more defensive than a cardigan, a Kevlar vest, and cargo pants. He won’t even wear goggles—he says they “spoil the effect.” Unprotected mucous membranes can spoil a hell of a lot more than that, but I practically have to blackmail him to get him into the Kevlar. Goggles are a nonstarter.
There’s one advantage to wearing a sweater in the field, no matter how idiotic I think it is: wool tears. Shaun ripped himself free and turned, running for the motorcycle with great speed, which is really the only effective weapon we have against the infected. Not even the fresh ones can keep up with an uninfected human over a short sprint. We have speed, and we have bullets. Everything else about this fight is in their favor.
“Shit, George, we’ve got company!” There was a perverse mixture of horror and delight in his tone. “Look at ’em all!”
“I’m looking! Now get on!”
I kicked us free as soon as he had his leg over the back of the bike and his arm around my waist. The bike leapt forward, tires bouncing and shuddering across the broken ground as I steered us into a wide curve. We needed to get out of there, or all the protective gear in the world w
ouldn’t do us a damn bit of good. I might live if the zombies caught up with us, but my brother would be dragged into the mob. I gunned the throttle, praying that God had time to preserve the life of the clinically suicidal.
We hit the last open route out of the square at twenty miles an hour, still gathering speed. Whooping, Shaun locked one arm around my waist and twisted to face the zombies, waving and blowing kisses in their direction. If it were possible to enrage a mob of the infected, he’d have managed it. As it was, they just moaned and kept following, arms extended toward the promise of fresh meat.
The road was pitted from years of weather damage without maintenance. I fought to keep control as we bounced from pothole to pothole. “Hold on, you idiot!”
“I’m holding on!” Shaun called back, seeming happy as a clam and oblivious to the fact that people who don’t follow proper safety procedures around zombies—like not winding up around zombies in the first place—tend to wind up in the obituaries.
“Hold on with both arms!” The moaning was only coming from three sides now, but it didn’t mean anything; a pack this size was almost certainly smart enough to establish an ambush. I could be driving straight to the site of greatest concentration. They’d moan in the end, once we were right on top of them. No zombie can resist a good moan when dinner’s at hand. The fact that I could hear them over the engine meant that there were too many, too close. If we were lucky, it wasn’t already too late to get away.
Of course, if we were lucky, we wouldn’t be getting chased by an army of zombies through the quarantine area that used to be downtown Santa Cruz. We’d be somewhere safer, like Bikini Atoll just before the bomb testing kicked off. Once you decide to ignore the hazard rating and the signs saying Danger: Infection, you’re on your own.