Ace Futrell's voice over the radio sent a glimmer of hope. "Control to Six, hang in there, guys, we're readying an ROV with a tow line. What's your depth?"

Lacombe's perspiring face glistened in the control panel's translucent light. "Three-three-six-four feet, dropping fifty feet a minute. Better get that ROV down here quick!"

I felt helpless, like a passenger aboard an airliner that had just lost its engines, accompanied by an inner voice that refused to shut up. What are you doing here? God, don't let me die… not yet, please. Lisa was right, I should've lived a little. Lord, get me out of this mess, and I swear, I'll—

The sub rolled and rattled, shattering my repentance, and I fell back in my seat, my sweaty palms gripping the armrests, my eyes watching the depth gauge as I tensed for our one final, skull-crushing implosion.

"Jesus, there's something else out there!" Hank cried, pointing between the squid's thrashing tentacles.

I leaned forward. Several long, dark figures were circling us, stalking the squid. I could see shadows of movement, but before I could focus, our bubble became enshrouded in clouds of ink.

The Bloops were launching their attack.

Through my headphones, I could hear them as they tore into the giant squid, their sickening high-pitched growls, like hungry fox terriers, gnawing upon their prey's succulent flesh.

My mind abandoned me then. Too terrified to reason, I squeezed my eyes shut—and was suddenly hit with a subliminal image from my childhood.

Underwater.

Deathly cold.

The darkness—pierced by a funnel of heavenly light!

Get to the light… get to the light—

"The light!" Opening my eyes, I tossed aside my shoulder harness and twisted the knob on the control station panel, changing the arc lights from red back to normal.

The sea appeared again, and we could see the torn hydraulic hoses and the sub's mangled manipulator arm dangling from its ravaged perch, along with the severed remains of lifeless tentacles, all swirling in a pool of black soup.

"Control to Six. The ROV's in the water. Hang in there, Don, we're coming to get you."

"Huh?" Lacombe pulled himself away from the spectacle outside to check our depth. "Control, we just passed thirty-eight hundred feet. Put the pedal to the metal, Ace, we're living on borrowed time."

I was on my feet now, looking straight up through the bubble cockpit at a lone tentacle still wrapped around the sub's tow arm. The arm's death grip was preventing the rest of the dead squid's gushing mantle and head from releasing to the sea.

Lost in the moment, I stood and watched that lifeless appendage as it slowly unfurled. The remains of the giant squid's torpedo-shaped body released, drifting up and away, away from our light.

They were upon it in seconds, long brown forms darting in and out of the shadows, each maybe twenty to thirty feet in length, ravaging the carcass like a pack of starving wolves.