The Very Best Scary Stories from Reddit

Deep Water

by nordic_nonsense

I am in the United States Coast Guard stationed on Guam. I work a desk job on the island, but I have friends in the Navy who have been off island on patrols and they tell me stories that they can't explain. Granted, they usually don't come out until four or five beers in, but when they do, you know they'll always be a doozy. This is one of my favorite stories that I wanted to share with Nosleep courtesy of a sailor off the USS Key West...

Back in 2013 when I first joined the Navy, I was ecstatic to learn I got orders to San Diego. Never before had I been so far away from home or had the opportunity to travel! The sea had always been a second home to me and I took the opportunity in stride, quickly getting qualified and even going above and beyond the qualifications I needed to get. I impressed everyone in my chain of command and even got a few extra perks like soda can duty. (Ask any sailor what that is and he'll say it's the best damned job on any ship.)

Anyways, about three months into our patrol, we were about 250 miles off the coast of Guam and the only solid ground is straight down about seven miles. A bunch of the old, crusty BM's tried to scare the youngsters into stories about creatures that lurked in the Mariana's Trench but the officers all dismissed these claims rather quickly, trying to shake any rumors of people going missing there that were now swirling about the Key West. Now, I wasn't on a massive aircraft carrier or anything like that but it was still a decently large ship and I was still a decently new person. So, when swim call was held over the Mariana's Trench, I was stuck on duty, which for the swimmers, basically was to make sure they weren't attacked by sharks. It was sort of sad watching my coworkers jump into that refreshing water while I was sweating my balls off in my full uniform.

As I sat there under the beating gaze of the Pacific sun, a wave of dread washed over me. I couldn't explain it, but it was definitely there like...something was about to happen. I brushed it off and continued to watch the other sailors swimming around the ship, the wind direction changed sharply and a pungent odor penetrated my nostrils, making me wrinkle my nose.

Coming from a small town on the Oregon Coast, I had smelled this before. This was the smell of the dark underbelly of a pier when then tide was unseasonably low. It was the smell of a crab pot that had been left out in the sun while the creatures inside slowly rotted from the inside out. It was unnatural and held something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

My stomach lurched when I felt the gentle vibrations rising from the belly of the ship up my spine. It took me a moment to realize, the horror washing over me like ice water, that the noise wasn't coming from the ship. Oh no, the vibrations were coming from the water beneath us. I wasn't the only one to feel it either. The guys in the water were all looking at one another nervously, some already swimming back to the cargo net. All noise and activity on the ship had stopped and I realized that we were sitting in dead silence, completely dead in the water. I could hear the shouts of confusion from the people below me as now the herd mentality took over, mass hysteria washing over the swimmers.

That's when it happened again, the vibrating was louder this time, nearly ratting the back of my teeth as I stood up and started blowing my whistle. Someone was sprinting towards me on the flight deck, our LT who had a pale white face. Even in my panic, I still managed to salute her as she waved it away, flicking her eyes down to the swimmers.

"We need to get them out of the water, now!" She barked, "There's something down there and we don't know what it is!"

"Roger that, ma'am." I managed to sputter out, still blowing my whistle. It was at that moment the first bloated corpse floated to the surface of the ocean, right next to one of the guys in the water.

Its white, mottled skin was evidence that it had been in the water for some time, but from the uniform that it wore, I knew in my heart, that it shouldn't still be in that stage of decomposition. The ragged green of a WWII soldier still clung to its body as the guy swimming next to it let out a scream that would wake the dead. Other bodies began to appear, creating another layer of decaying flesh along the surface of the water. People were crying out and screaming as they made a mad dash to the cargo net, hauling themselves up onto the flight deck, only to turn around and help their fellows up onto the ship as well. Even in times of strive and horror such as these, we never left a brother behind.

The bodies continued to rise, even as the last of the swimmers were pulled to safety. We watched in horror as the corpses slowed their ascent, but instead now began to raise their rotten heads and start to paddling and floating towards the ship. The LT's face was whiter than snow when she finally snapped into action, "Grab that goddamned net and get it the fuck up here!"

My LT was a very straightforward woman who believed in two things, God and never using swear words. This got the other sailors moving as they hoisted the net up, just as the first bloated fingers of the undead managed to wrap around the very bottom of the cargo net. Shaking but unable to take my eyes off of the bodies that now surrounded us, their whitened arms and stumps pawing at the slick metal of the Key West. Someone had obviously gone down to engineering to see what we could do with the engines being down because within a few moments, with a familiar growl, she came back to life. This seemed to frighten the water zombies away for a few moments, but they were back with vengeance after they realized what had happened, their clawing and grabbing more frantic now as they looked up at us with what used to be their eyes, now black and eaten away by some unknown creature.

Suddenly, there was another vibration, but this time it was so powerful, it knocked people to the ground. We watched in horror as thousands upon thousands of corpses were suddenly dragged under the water, their hands still outstretched to our boat as they disappeared back into the briny depths. Once the last of the undead had been dragged under, we stopped to catch our breath, wondering if that actually happened. The wind direction changed once more and the smell of low tide faded back into the familiar sharp salt water we had all gotten used to. We all began to wonder if we had all just imagined it, but at that moment, another deep vibration echoed through the ocean, this one not as loud, but longer, as if something was content by what it had done.

To this day, most Naval ships won't stop for swim calls over the Trench. Most will say they're over the Trench but instead they'll be maybe fifty or sixty miles away from it because of that incident. I've asked around with other Navy guys and they've kind of just laughed it off as a joke. Most will tell you that they have had strange experiences out there, but many will hike it up to being only fatigue or stress. But I think they know what actually happens out there. They're just not willing to admit to themselves that there are things out there that they can't explain.