Water tickled his feet, in and out the small waves splashed into his toes, swooped in to surround his ankles, then retreated. He stopped punching the metal and, with a surge of desperate energy stemming from mad fear, the internal instinct to survive, he stood and screamed at the ocean. Screamed at it with raw animal ferocity.
“Stop it!” he yelled at the sea, tears spilling onto his trembling lips as he sobbed. “Leave me alone!”
He spun and ferociously kicked at the stanchion, merciless to his own flesh, demanding freedom now, insisting on life. One toe—a middle one—snapped as it connected with the steel and he screamed again in agony, sat down hard on the stair, not noticing the cool water wetting the bottom of his trunks, and clutched his foot, rocking and sniveling in pain and despair.
Carelessly, pitilessly, the water continued to rise, and it was all Mike could do, as he helplessly watched, to keep his mind from bursting into a thousand pieces, to be consumed by fear; much like the fractured sun was being slowly devoured, in the distance, by the gaping maw of the Pacific.
* * *
Hank’s thoughts were a hurricane. He couldn’t grasp all the swirling threads fast enough. He’d reach for one thing and it would fly away, then another thing would zoom in and he’d reach for that, and it too would zip away, evading his logic, his ability to problem-solve.
I hu-hu-handcuffed Mike to the stairs! Joe had yelled through tears, through great heaving sobs. I’m so sorry, Daddy! I’m so, so sorry!
Hank had made his phone call and returned to the hospital room he had left only minutes before to find nurses bustling in and out and the loud cries of his son coming from somewhere. His first, insane thought had been, My God! She’s dead! My wife is dead! and he’d run to the room, burst through the door, only to find Mariel not only alive, but awake, and looking at him!
Okay, shock number one.
He smiled and went to her bed, grabbed her hand, elated to see his darling looking back at him, clear-eyed and alive, so alive!
“Baby,” he’d started, then stopped at her expression. Was that fear? “What?” was all he could think to say. She gripped his hand and looked over at Joe, who was slumped in a chair against the far wall, his face in his hands, wailing like a six-year-old who’d just seen his dog run down by a UPS truck.
“Joe?” he said, growing agitated, and afraid. “What the hell is going on here, you guys?” He even looked at one of the nurses for help, but she only shrugged and checked his wife’s monitors, made notes on a clipboard.
Mariel squeezed Hank’s hand, hard. He looked down at her, emotions convulsing. She looked at him, then across the room to her son.
“Tell him, Joe. Tell him right now,” she said, her voice strong, but he could hear the underlying weakness behind it, the strain to make herself sound strong.
Joe looked at his father, face shining with tears, and told him what he’d done.
Shock number two.
And now Hank was in the goddamn parking lot, waiting. Joe was next to him, still whimpering. Hank had an arm around his shoulders, but could barely think straight as he waited for Jack to come get them, to drive them home.
“It’s okay,” he mumbled, half-heartedly, absently. His mind was racing. If Joe had done what he’d said he’d done, and his details were right, it was likely already too late. Hank knew the tide, and if little Mike Klein was trapped at the bottom of that staircase, he’d drowned by now.
And, if by some miracle, the first high tide hadn’t drowned the poor kid, the second one sure as shit would. That was the top of the tidal range for that little harbor, and even a grown man standing on the bottom step of that staircase would be breathing seawater at the peak of it.
He looked at his watch, tried to gauge what kind of chance they had. Nearly 9 p.m. Oh, shit, no. Too late, way too late, he thought. Even though the tide wouldn’t reach its zenith for a few hours, it was plenty high enough to kill the boy.
He squeezed Joe’s shoulders again, tried to be reassuring, but he knew this was bad. Very bad for all of them. Joe would be charged with involuntary manslaughter at the least, and he’d be looking at some years in juvenile detention, most likely more than a few. If they knew he was a cop’s son…
That can’t happen, that won’t happen, he thought, already filing through the rolodex in his mind of contacts in high places, of favors owed. He’d pull some strings, go into some bad debt with some high-ranking people, but he’d keep his son out of juvenile. He’d do whatever it took.
But Mike. Oh my God.
He thought about the kid who played with Joe every summer. A good kid, a real nice boy. His mother had died, tragically, of cancer years ago. The father, a doctor, surgeon or something, had really bottomed out. Anyone could see what a mess they’d become. Mariel had never liked the wife, called her a stuck-up bitch (if he remembered correctly, her exact phrase had been that she had a “stick up her snatch”). The husband was a bit of an asshole, truth be told. Ivy league type. They’d even had them for dinner a couple times, and then never again. Sometimes these things just don’t work out. Conflicting personalities and all that. But the boys, the boys always seemed on good terms. They didn’t fight, they didn’t vandalize shit or get into crap they shouldn’t get into. They were good boys, and Hank liked Mike. He was always polite, always good with Joe.
Hank’s pulse accelerated as he saw the squad car squeal into the hospital parking lot. They had run dark—lights off, no sirens—so as not to spook the ER docs, but they’d made good time.
The car came to a stop in front of Hank and Joe, Jack in the driver’s seat. The young officer, Tim Wells, got out and opened the back door for them. He gave Joe a quick glance, one Hank recognized very well, as they piled into the back of the police car. It was the same look Hank gave a criminal right before he tucked the guy’s head into the back of his own squad car. The one that said, “You’re the new asshole, eh? Pleased to meet ya. Now kindly go fuck yourself.”
Hank settled into the back seat, Joe scrunched up beside him. As Tim shut the rear door, Hank wasn’t sure he didn’t see just a little bit of that glance come his way, as well.
“Let’s go, Jack,” Hank said as the other officer climbed in. Jack nodded and the car sprang from the parking lot like a horse out of the gate.
The lights and sirens came on and the car hit a hundred on Seaside Drive. Jack had sent another car ahead, as well as an ambulance. At the rate Jack was driving, however, he was fairly certain they’d get there first. At this point, everyone involved knew it was a race against time, and Hank prayed it wasn’t too late.
* * *
The phone rang and Paul snatched it up before the echoes of the first bleating chime had drifted away. “Yes! Yes?” he said, frantic now, desperate.
It had been over an hour since he’d placed the call to the police, who had taken his information and a description of his son, promised to look into it and see if any reports had come in that might involve his boy. Otherwise, they’d said with infuriating calm, he’d have to wait and file an official Missing Persons report in the morning. He’d thanked them and paced the house, calling the Dentons’ home every ten minutes, not wanting to leave the phone.
It had grown darker in that hour, almost night now, nearly 9 p.m. While he’d paced and worried, Paul had thought more and more about the dream. He couldn’t shake how real it had seemed; trapped in that bed, so sick he couldn’t move, stricken with the same disease as her, dying in the same bed she died in. And she had been there. He remembered now. She’d warned him, warned him that she was taking Mike. He remembered that black mirror pulsing and roving like a mad eyeball, the frantic waves of the frame. Over the last hour, half-crazy with worry, thinking of the nightmares, Paul had come to realize a great many things – things about himself, things about his wife, things about his relationship with Mike.
Just give me time, he prayed to any god who would listen. Give me time and I’ll make it right, he pleaded over and over again as he waited. He
knew it might be too late. As the world outside the window dimmed, and the phone remained silent, and the front door failed to materialize the flesh of his son, he knew there was a very real chance he’d lost that time. Forfeited his opportunity to be a father, allowed his son to slip away from him.
But the shattering ring had trumped all thought and when he answered it hope sprang back, like a burst of light in the dark, like the birth of a star.
“Mr. Klein?” said a man’s voice.
“Yes? Please…”
“Sir, we have officers coming to your location now. Please stay calm and help will be there as soon as possible. State Trooper Denton knows where to find your son, and he is in route with two of our officers…”
Paul’s numb brain tried to process the information as it was coming in. They know where he is. But is he alive? Dead? Hurt? Denton knows?
“Where?” he wailed into the phone, his world crumbling, every nerve in his body screaming, the blood pumping in his head so loudly he could barely hear the voice when it answered.
“Sir, apparently there was an accident…” the voice said uncertainly, like it was holding back. “The Denton boy…”
“Jesus Christ, where’s my fucking son!” Paul screamed, gripping the receiver tight enough to crack its plastic casing.
“Sir, from what I’ve been told, he’s in the cove near your house. Apparently, he’s been there all day. Sir? Mr. Klein?”
The officer’s voice came through the dangling receiver as it swayed inches from the floor, forgotten.
Paul was past the door, past the porch, and into the night. The clouds that had been slowly building as dusk approached began to break apart, and a light, cold rain sprinkled down through the inky night. Paul felt the cold drops hit his face, and part of him heard the distant rumble of the oncoming storm. Had he been aware of anything he would have heard the wailing approach of sirens. If he’d turned and looked down the coastline he might have caught the red and blue flicker of distant police lights, the trailing red and white pulsing of an ambulance.
But Paul didn’t register the storm, or the sirens, or the lights. Paul heard the voice on the phone say the words, over and over in his head, like a scratchy phonograph broadcast through a low frequency: “He’s in the cove. He’s in the cove. He’s in the cove.”
He heard the pounding of his footsteps against the earth. He heard the beating of his heart in his ears, his sharp heavy breathing.
The clouds burst open and thunder cracked, a white pop-flash of lightning pulsed in the night sky and rain crashed down in waves, soaking him through in seconds.
But Paul didn’t notice any of this. All he could think was run, run, run.
And so, as Hank Denton began screaming for lights, and the worst storm of that horrible summer shattered the teetering shelf of night sky, Paul was running.
* * *
For the last few hours, Mike had stood, silently watching the sun devoured by the ocean, as the seawater rose, inch by agonizing inch, up the length of his tired body.
When the first stroke of cool wind brushed his skin, he looked to the north, saw a group of gray clouds slide elegantly along the ceiling of the sky, roiling and flexing as they crept closer and closer.
By the time the sun was down, the clouds were overhead, and the blue of the sea had been replaced by a black nothingness blending seamlessly into the night sky. The freezing water had risen to his chest, and he shivered so badly that he occasionally spasmed, his small body jerking uncontrollably. His muscles were knotting from tension and dehydration and cold, and he could no longer feel the hand past the handcuff. It was limp in the water, floating like a dead fish, food for any takers. His feet were also numb, and he tried to step in place to keep blood flowing below his waist, anything to keep his body warm.
He was surprised, despite the horror of his dire situation, at how dark it was. Once the sun had gone, and the hazy yellow glow of its descent had softened and dissipated into the night, the cove had become a cave. Looking back up the staircase, he could only make out the vague shape of the rocks at the top, the edge of the crest before it became a canvas of dead black sky. The ocean itself was so high now that it had absorbed the shape of the cove, overruled the land with its girth.
He searched for the moon, but it was absent. It had left the play early, he reasoned, thinking of the masks he’d seen in the rocks. Likely because it was so sure of the outcome.
Staring out into that vast formless space, that whispering dark, he watched the thoughtless void open, expand to meet him. He saw himself within the great mouth, a speck of dust on the surface of an insignificant planet; a vast power, destructive and blind, cast a mountain’s shadow over his small carapace of wet, quivering flesh. Behold the void, it said, and in that moment of realization, that granting of vision, Mike knew that he would soon be dead.
The water rose higher, wrapped around his shoulders like a serpent. A few minutes later, it licked at his neck, then chin.
Mike thought he had cried all the tears he could, but as he raised up onto his toes one last time, knowing the end was near, he did what any terrified little kid would do when faced with the impossible reality that your life was about to be over.
He wept.
The heavens rumbled, the sound of a sheet of metal being beaten across the sky, and then the rain came down.
As the rain fell around him, adding its meager drops to the already rising tide, Mike almost laughed out loud at the sheer unfairness of it all. Almost. Instead of laughing, he simply sighed. A good, long sigh. The kind of exhale where all the tension that was trapped in your heart escapes along with the breath, and you feel slightly more at peace.
Mike was ready to let go.
“Daddy…” he said. A last, forlorn plea.
Exhausted beyond measure, emotionally depleted and psychologically beaten, Mike slowly lowered his heels to the cold metal of the step. The two-inch drop brought the water up, like a girl raising herself for a kiss, to caress his lips. Then Mike closed his eyes, let his body go limp, and waited to die.
Above and behind him, lost to his ears in a clap of thunder and the sound of the rain hammering against the surrounding water, were the shouts of men.
The squad car turned into the Dentons’ driveway at the same time a second squad car was already opening its doors in front of their porch. They stopped next to the first one and both officers were out and opening the rear doors for Hank and Joe before Hank could get the word, “Hurry!” out of his mouth.
Hank immediately started running away from the cruiser in the direction of the cove. Joe screamed after him, “Dad! The key! You need the key!”
Rain had begun to fall. There was a soft murmur of thunder from above as Hank turned back, then looked at Joe with the briefest flash of anger—of hostility—then it passed and a sort of patient calm took its place.
“Joe, which cuffs did you take? The ones in the closet? The ones I kept in the gym bag?”
“Yes,” Joe said, no longer caring if he got in trouble, no longer caring if he would go to jail for the rest of his life. He had caught enough bits and pieces from his parents and the other cops to know things were far, far worse than he’d ever imagined.
The tide, they’d said, over and over. Then he, too, remembered. Remembered that the cove filled up with water, and that was why they weren’t supposed to swim there, because the current could get too strong, could suck them out to sea, could suck them under. He’d realized, with cold horror, that he’d likely killed his friend, after all. But it wasn’t because of some mysterious bad guy, or a stray wild animal. Mike had probably drowned by now, stuck to the stairs because of Joe. It was Joe who had handcuffed him, Joe who had forgotten about him in the confusion and shock of his parents’ accident, Joe who had been too scared to tell anyone the truth until it was too late. And if it was too late, it wouldn’t matter what anyone did to him, because he’d never—not until the day he died—forgive himself for doing such a horrible thing.
“I lost it, Dad! I don’t know where it is!” he yelled, trying to be heard over the rain and confusion.
Hank turned to one of the officers. “They’re standard. Give me your cuff keys, Jack.” The big officer who had found Joe on the porch that morning ducked into his pocket and handed Hank a small set of keys. Other officers were already running for the cove.
Behind Joe, a siren blared and he spun to see an ambulance pull in. He ran to the side of the gravel drive, out of the way. He turned back, saw his dad running.
“Dad!”
Hank turned, not slowing. “Stay there! I’ll be back!”
And he was gone, already sprinting past the other men. Paramedics walked toward the police cars. One of them, a young guy who looked like one of the seniors at the high school he and Mike went to, turned to Joe.
“What’s going on, kid? We’re a bit in the dark here.”
Joe started to answer when thunder ripped through the sky, and hard rain began to fall. “We think my friend is drowned!” he said, hating the reality of the words, but feeling better now that all this help was here. Maybe it’ll be okay, he thought, hoping.
“Oh shit,” the second medic said, an older woman wearing a blue baseball hat and thick blue jacket, a large red pack over one shoulder. “Where?”
“Come on, I’ll show you!” he said, and followed his father, jogging as quick as he dared, willing the two medics running behind him to hurry.
Paul reached the lip of the cove and looked down, frantically searched for his son. It was so dark, the rain and oncoming storm so loud, it was like looking into a black hole, with all of space being sucked madly into it.
He heard a shout and turned. Coming down the coast were a group of men. Two of them had flashlights and Paul could see now, far in the distance, the swirling lights of police cars and an ambulance.
“Oh my god,” he said, then took a step onto the metal staircase. “Mike!” he screamed, searching the water, the rocks. Where? Where?
Behold the Void Page 29