Behold the Void

by Philip Fracassi

  He picked up the seagull-etched shot glass and downed the whiskey. It spilled down his chin. He turned the shot glass over, pressed it down onto the paper, then raised it again, leaving a thin wet circle that smeared his words, sealed half-formed scribbles within. He closed the newest journal, stuck it in the drawer where he kept the others, along with his other notes, his shattered autobiography.

  He stood and the room wobbled, swayed.

  “God damn, Paul,” he mumbled to himself, and staggered out of the office. He thought momentarily of going to look for Mike, to at least watch him live, if not actually participate. But the room was off-kilter, the floor slanted beneath his bare feet.

  “Need to sleep this off,” he said, not caring that he’d only been out of bed a few hours. It had been a makeshift sleep at best last night. The nightmares had come again, as they often did here at the summer cabin. Like fucking clockwork, he thought as he made his way down the short hall to the master bedroom.

  Slumping onto the bed, he managed to turn the digital clock radio toward him, its bright green digits frigid and accusing. Fingers fumbling, he set the radio alarm to go off at one o’clock, right around when Mike would come home for lunch. This heroic task accomplished, Paul let himself turn and lie face-flat in one of the musty pillows. Yes, he would sleep it off. A nice, quiet rest, with no dreams, no nightmares.

  The nightmares… always the nightmares. Always so similar, if not exactly the same. Every damned one featuring his dead wife, even if she were not something he could necessarily see, she was always a presence he could at least feel. Her hazy spirit calling to him.

  Was she beckoning him? Warning him? Angry? Vengeful? Or just afraid… he could never really tell upon waking. He never really knew the point of the nightmares, and didn’t have the heart or will to analyze them.

  There was only one consistency. In each nightmare, despite his howling wife’s most eager and lively protestations from beyond the grave, he had a front row seat to tragedy. Death. Each time a little different. Each dream had a bit of its own unique flavor.

  In some dreams, Paul almost got there in time. Almost saved him. In some dreams, he just observed, as passive as a plant or a patch of sky…

  In a bizarre surge of panic, Paul changed his mind. He didn’t want to sleep. Not now. Something deep within his core told him to wake up, not to fall asleep, not to dream. He tried to listen to the inner voice, tried desperately to get up, thinking he could just go for a walk instead. Fresh air. Sunshine.

  He swung his feet back over the edge of the mattress, started to stand. The floor shifted like the deck of a sea-flung ship. Helplessly, he collapsed backward onto the bed, let the world spin, spin away. He fell into the mouth of darkness and prayed, as the dark hungrily consumed him, that there would be no dreams.

  He had no interest in watching his son die again.

  * * *

  Mike sat in the sand, his back propped against a cool, but uncomfortable, rock sunk next to the bottom of the stairs. The pads of his feet were pointed to the sea. His wrist hung limply at his side, encased tightly in the steel cuff; the other cuff lying flat at the bottom of the stanchion, dusted with sand. His chin drooped to his chest. The sun, hotter by the minute, beat down on the top of his head, the back of his neck, his shoulders, his legs. He raised his eyes to study the soft waves cruising in, watched with a hypnotic fascination as they created curl after curl in the wet sand, as if the ocean were licking hungrily at the beach, like a child might do to a soft-serve ice cream, or a popsicle.

  The thought of ice cream intensified the dryness of his mouth. He smacked his thirsty lips, let his tongue root for moisture inside. He was getting dehydrated sitting here, waiting like an idiot for Joe to come back with the key.

  He noticed the sun had climbed, figured it was probably just past eleven now. His stomach rumbled at the thought of lunch, and he regretted skipping breakfast that morning. His dad had been asleep when Joe knocked at the front door just after nine a.m., suit already on, smile plastered to his face, ready and raring to go.

  Mike’s stomach growled again and he shifted his weight along the rock, trying to find a spot where the rough surface didn’t dig so painfully into his back. His thighs were getting hot so he pulled them in, sat cross-legged, cupped wet sand with his free hand and tossed it carelessly over his bare feet, giving them a little shade while he waited for Joe’s return.

  Hasn’t it been ten minutes? he thought, and wasn’t sure. He’d sorta spaced-out for a while there, watching the surf, almost enjoying being able to sit by himself and think, to be closed off from the world—from his father’s sadness, Joe’s obnoxiousness, thoughts of going back to school. Missing his real friends. Missing his mother, like he always did when they came to the summer cabin. It was here the early memories took root—them playing together when he was younger, the family dinners, the normalcy. They’d swam in this very cove, he clinging to an inflated tube that swelled and dipped with each soft wave, she in her bright blue swimsuit, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, smiling at him as she waded in the cool water, laughing at the tickling of the seaweed snatching at her toes.

  “Do you feel it?” she’d asked him almost every time. “Do you feel the seaweed calling for you, sweetie? It’s reaching up, toward the sun, toward life.” Sometimes she’d push his raft where the weeds were highest, something he dreaded. “It wants to meet you, baby,” she’d say. “It wants to say hello. Can you feel it?”

  Mike had felt it on occasion. Especially in later years, when he was taller, his feet deeper down, closer to that muddy bottom, the weeds caressing his ankles. He didn’t care for the seaweed. Found it creepy and gross. But he never told his mom that. It was her game and, for the most part, he was happy to go along and play it with her. He liked the beach in California better, the one they went to when they visited Aunt Stacy, who lived in Los Angeles and only saw Mike every other year or so, while his mother was still alive at least. They hadn’t seen her for almost three years. Not since the funeral.

  Aunt Stacy had the same reaction every time she saw Mike. She’d hug him really hard, then hold him at arm’s length, dramatically study him up and down and say, “My oh my, how time does fly!” then laugh and hug him again. Mike’s dad called the place where Aunt Stacy lived Holly-weird, but Mike didn’t think it was weird there. He thought it was pretty cool. Lots of people, lots of stuff to see and do. Big beaches. Massive, sandy, long beaches that you could run on and build sand castles, and when you waded into the water it was still sandy at your feet until you were almost at your chin and then it was too deep to know what was on the bottom. Mike always stayed in the shallower, sandy part.

  He wished the beach here was like that. He wished the cove was like that, but he knew better. About ten feet into the water from where he sat the bottom dropped out, at least twenty feet deep in some places, but all over his head, all too deep to touch, even for adults. And the water wasn’t blue and clear like in Los Angeles. It was green, dark, and very cold. And the seaweed limbs were big. Flowing, writhing things lying just beneath the surface of the water, and when you swam those leafy limbs reached up at you with wiggling arms, brushed against you and sometimes (Mike could have sworn it had happened more than once) they grabbed at you. Wrapped around your legs or ankles and held tight, making you twist and pull to free yourself. It was why his dad didn’t like to swim there, why he usually just watched while Mike and his mom waded deeper and deeper.

  Mike had only been out past the perimeter of the cove once, and it had been an accident. His mom had gone onto the beach to yell lunch instructions up to his dad who stood at the top of the stairs. Had left him floating. It was his dad who had pointed and yelled, and begun running down the stairs. But his mother reached the water first, and Mike watched, almost in a daze, as she swam toward him, faster and faster. He saw his father go into the water, so small and distant, jumping in still wearing his clothes, most likely his wallet, too.

  Mike had looked aro
und, expecting to see the high rise of brown rocks surrounding him, and was surprised to see so much blue water, the coastline stretched out both ways, toward town one way, toward a massive clump of distant tall green trees the other. He looked back to the beach, could see the entrance to the cove and realized, at that moment, that the ocean had pulled a fast one on his folks. And on him. When no one was looking, when no one was paying any mind, least of all him, the ocean had slipped its large wet hand into the cove and quietly—oh so quietly—pulled little Mike out into its wide, cold embrace. As if the ocean itself was the stranger you were always warned about. The one who stole children.

  His mother reached him a few minutes later, huffing and nearly crying with effort, with fear. She grabbed the end of the purple tube he was quietly clinging to, waded a moment while she caught her breath.

  He saw his dad had stopped, was waving at her from just past the cove’s entrance—or exit, as it was this time—and she waved back. She looked up at Mike, her face flush, spitting saltwater out as fast as it lapped into her mouth.

  “You okay, baby?” she said, sounding very tired.

  “Yeah,” he said, only eight years old at the time and not wholly aware of the danger he’d been in. “I floated out.”

  His mom had laughed, and slowly, with more than one breather while she treaded water, pulled him back to shore, swimming as best she could with one hand clutched to the end of his raft.

  After that incident Mike had been lectured about the dangers of the cove, been told about currents and rogue waves, told what precautions to take when swimming. As a last-minute add-on to that lecture, Mike was told something else about the cove, something he’d been warned was the greatest danger of all when swimming there.

  The tide.

  The tide came in twice a day, and Mike was strictly forbidden to swim there when the tide was up because it was too dangerous, the currents too strong, the rocks too close, too jagged. Like teeth, his mother had said once, and clamped her jaws together, lips pulled back, to show how the rocks of the cove could bite you, could mash you up and swallow you whole.

  As he sat on the hot sand, sifting through old memories, Mike looked around at the rocks, replayed his mother’s words once more, turned them over in his head. The rocks didn’t look like teeth to him. They just looked like rocks, dry and rough, the sun beating down on them the same as it was on him. It amazed him to think of all the things in the world that could hurt you, that even something so natural as water and rocks were villains to be warned about, dangers lurking in the wide open, waiting to strike.

  Growing more and more agitated, by both the dark thoughts and the hot sun, he twisted his body, looked up to the top of the stairs. Where is he? Mike thought, and felt a flutter of a black crow’s wing in his guts. The slightest flicker of fear, of panic. But he pushed it down, pushed it away, refused to be a baby about the situation. He puffed out a breath, forced himself to relax. He sank back against the rock, casually as he could, and waited. Joe would be back any second, and the game would be over, and then he could go home, eat lunch, and find his dad. He refused to give Joe the satisfaction of hearing him call out, of showing any fear. He settled into the sand and stretched out his legs once more, heels to the sea.

  The water lapped at the beach, eager to reach Mike’s feet. Eventually, it would. Mike noticed with a detached sense of wonder that even now the water was a few inches closer than it had been a moment ago.

  My oh my, he thought, almost smiling at the memory as he watched the water lap ever closer, licking at the sand, desperate to reach him. How time does fly.

  Mike’s chin fell to his chest, and the hypnotic sound of the thin breaking waves lulled him into a false sense of peace. After a few minutes, his body slumped lightly against the warm stanchion, and the giggling waves crept ever closer, ever closer, toward him, and he gave way to the ocean’s sweet song, and fell asleep.

  He slept, and did not dream.

  PART THREE

  1st High Tide

  (12pm—3pm, approx.)

  An hour later, Mike woke.

  He looked down at the water, which waited impatiently, like a feisty blue cat, at the folds of his stomach. Foaming suds stared up at him like a thousand white eyes. Wake up, Mike! they said. Come swim with us. Come swimming, so that we can be with you. Out into the great blue you’ll go, the great big blue will welcome you home, and we can all swim together.

  Shocked by the icy water that now covered him from the waist down, Mike leapt up, coughed hoarsely in surprise and terror.

  Midway to standing a sharp, cutting pain dug into his wrist and he was snagged mid-leap, jerked awkwardly to the side and splashed down into the water, face-first.

  The fucking cuffs! he thought, lifting his face and spitting out seawater, remembering at that moment the magnitude of his predicament.

  The water… he thought, in pure white-hot horror, the kind of horror that numbed the mind, made you do stupid, thoughtless, panicked things. Things that characters in a scary movie might do while you yelled at them from behind your popcorn to Stop! Stop being so damned stupid!

  But Mike wasn’t stupid. He was a smart, level-headed little kid who could problem-solve with the best of them. The only issue being that this particular problem wasn’t registering too high on the solvability scale.

  The ocean slapped at his back as Mike spun on submerged knees to face the steel stanchion he was cuffed to. He raised his wrist up, dragging the cuff up along the black metal. He stood slowly his wrist slid higher, the other cuff scraping along obediently, at least until it met the hand railing welded to the top of the stanchion. Now that he was able to stand straight, his panic subsided a bit. The water was only to his knees now, and the danger seemed much further off. He also realized that by turning his body he could stand on the first step, which he did. Now the water was just past his ankles, wrapping his shins. He took a couple deep breaths, and, as the shock and panic subsided, a new pain slowly emerged. He turned his head and looked down at his shoulders, then chest and belly.

  His skin was bright red.

  He looked at the sun, saw it was pretty much directly overhead now, leaning a bit toward the east, but definitely on the rise. Past noon, he thought, not wanting to think it but realizing that, inexplicably, he’d been down in the cove for almost two hours. His breath quickened as panic reared its head once again. He put his free hand on his opposing wrist, tugged as hard as he could, praying that the metal might be rusted enough he could snap it. He awkwardly put a bare foot against the stanchion, pushing as he tugged. Nothing. He grabbed the metal bar with both hands, jerked and pulled; the water splashed around his legs like a horde of playful puppies as he fought to free himself.

  Exhausted, his pride now forgotten, Mike looked to the top of the stairs, saw nothing but empty blue sky looking back, and screamed for help. “Joe!” he yelled. “God damn it, Joe Denton! This ain’t funny! I’m burned and the water’s getting high! Joe!”

  The great expanse of clear blue sky stared placidly down on the boy’s protestations, the planet-wide eye of the unblinking dome desultory in its boredom of Mike’s growing, and very real, danger.

  “Hello!” he screamed, pre-pubescent voice cracking. “Somebody! Some…”

  Something under the water coiled itself to Mike’s calf and pulled. He gasped and spun, lifted the leg away, as if yanked from a cold grabbing hand. He studied the water, splashed the surface with his free hand, but saw nothing. Whatever it had been—a fish? Seaweed, perhaps?—was gone.

  But the water had risen. Even standing it was up to his knees now. It had been no more than ten minutes since he woke, but he figured the water had risen at least a few inches in that time. If not more.

  He searched out the water line salted along the rocks, saw with a sinking fear that there were a few waterlines, the lowest of which was just about his eye-level if he was standing on the first step. The others were higher. Much higher.

  Mike’s skin was hurting so ba
dly that, despite the irony of seeking shelter from his potential killer, he stepped off the stairs and lowered himself into the waist-deep water, let it cover his shoulders, his scorched neck. The relief was immediate and he tried to find a comfortable position in which to crouch. His face burned and he quickly ducked his head under, held his breath for a moment, opened his eyes.

  He couldn’t see much, and the seawater stung. It was cloudy and green. During the few brief seconds he could stand it, he saw deep into the cove, saw the waving arms of dark seaweed, flittering shadows darting between them, and something else. It looked like a dark smudge, or an ink spill, in the water, twisting in the current, then darting, with precision, straight toward him.

  His head erupted from the water and he stepped back onto the metal steps—one, two—his arm reaching downward, stretched to its full length. He let out a yelp and pushed the hair from his brow, began rubbing madly at his burning eyes.

  They stung badly, but it was abating. His skin was screaming now, though. The combination of saltwater and baking sun was prickling his shoulders, cooking his head, his face.

  Even on the second step, the water was now past his knees. He didn’t know what to do. Go down into the water to escape the sun? With that thing coming at him? Should he cry out again, hope to be heard over the soft, breaking surf? His arm hurt, his wrist was red and cut where he had jerked it against the cuff. His skin burned and his eyes stung. He didn’t know what to do.

  He was scared, so scared.

  He split the difference and kneeled on the first step. The saltwater splashed carelessly against his stomach and chest. He put his face into the crook of his free elbow and began to cry.

  * * *

  In his dream, Paul stood in the office that was no longer an office. The walls he had spent an exhausting day painting white were now blue again. There was a bed instead of a desk, and the big brown dresser with the oval mirror set into the top had returned. He studied the mirror. The wooden carving of the waves that surrounded the oval-shaped glass flowed as he stared; rippling, cresting outward from the mirror’s surface, like a bed of blooming flowers, before the edges filtered and dissolved into the air.