James Axler – Watersleep

“Doc might not be that far off the beam about our visitors,” Mildred said, squinting and trying to get a better look at the pair.

“What? Atlantis? Sure, Millie,” J.B. said. “And those two are going to come spurting up to give us a lift back to shore on their dolphins.”

“Not Atlantis. We’re in the wrong part of the ocean, anyway,” Mildred retorted. “No, I mean what he said about there being no better way to escape the disease, the violence and the mental pain of living on the surface than by going down below, beneath the sea.”

“Under the sea,” Doc sang in an unfamiliar tune, “under the sea, dear, just you and me, dear, under the sea.”

“I doubt those two are true amphibians, anyway,” Mildred added, ignoring Doc’s musical outburst. “They’ve been keeping their heads above water with no problem. They might be able to stay under a long time, but they seem to live on air just as easily as breathing oxygen through some kind of gills. The mu­tations appear purposely induced.”

Ryan recalled some of the horrors he’d seen back when taking a stroll through the Anthill’s laboratories. They had been generating many of the same sorts of survivalist mutations there.

“Could be right, Mildred,” Ryan said.

“Look at their eyes. I’ll bet they’re covered with a second protective membrane. That’s what makes them so damned pop-eyed.”

And then, as if they had heard Mildred’s theories, both of the muties’ heads vanished beneath the water in unison.

Chapter Thirteen

The color of the ceiling was industrial off-white. A bare light bulb, shining hot, hung a few inches from the painted surface. There was a roughness in the paint, a kind of swirling pattern.

Krysty closed her eyes in an attempt to adjust to what she had just seen, then reopened them.

The ceiling and bulb were both still there. She was flat on her back, and looking up.

“Ryan?” she said, almost not recognizing the sound of her own voice. The one-word question came out in a feeble croak. She cleared her throat and coughed hoarsely. Her mouth was as dry as chalk.

Krysty turned her head to the right, then left, taking in her surroundings. She was in a small room, no windows, a single closed door with a twelve-inch square of glass inserted at eye level. The walls were the same industrial off-white as the ceiling. She glanced down to a carpeted floor. The carpet was well worn but clean, its color a neutral dark blue. Very unassuming, very unthreatening.

She tried to sit up, and suddenly the beigeness of the room erupted in a variety of colors, all violent and nauseating. She laid her head back down on the pil­low, and the sick sensations disappeared. She began a mental inventory. What had brought her to this place?

Then she remembered the water, the storm and the fall into the abyss.

Krysty lifted herself to a sitting position, this time much slower. The walls stayed bland. She swung her feet over the side of the bed—realizing for the first time she was barefoot—and let them fall onto the carpet. The woman sighed deeply. She was wearing a cotton pair of canary yellow pajamas, a matching set of top and bottom. She was alive, and dry, and wearing a man’s nightclothes.

How she’d ended up here remained to be seen.

Krysty staggered on her feet as she stepped over to the door, consciously willing the returning small ex­plosions of color to go away. She tried the doorknob, which was locked. How utterly…predictable.

She craned her neck and tried to see through the door’s viewing portal. Outside was a hall, and directly across from her was a door that appeared to be iden­tical to the one she was now housed behind. Printed on the door in stenciled black paint was the word Unit 2. No matter how she turned her head, all she could really see was the single door for Unit 2, along with the walls of the hall, which came complete with a silver handrail.

After looking at Unit 2, Krysty decided she was probably in Unit 1.

She turned back and took in her room. There was an open closet with a pull curtain near the head of the small single bed, and a bare end table stood between the closet door and the bed. She stepped over and pulled aside the curtain to the closet. Empty. She pulled open the drawer of the end table. Empty again.