by Barry Napier
“I did. But you don’t believe in ghosts. Remember?”
She didn’t answer. She did, however, stand up with him. She stood very close to him and he noticed that her eyes showed a touch of concern.
“I never said I didn’t believe,” she said. “I said I was on the fence.”
“Well then come on down to the sand on my side,” Cooper said with a nervous smile as he cut on the flashlight. “We’ve got some exploring to do.”
9
When they were standing on the beach directly in front of the two large black rocks, the figure was no longer there. Its absence didn’t matter, though. They had both seen it and even Stephanie, in her skeptical stubbornness, wasn’t willing to say that it was just a trick of the night on their eyes. She had seen it; it had chilled her so badly that the hair on her arms was standing on end, and she wasn’t about to flat out deny what she had seen.
In fact, as Cooper shone the flashlight onto the rocks, she seemed downright scared. Cooper, on the other hand, was used to these sorts of things. In the time he had spent working for the government and more prominently during the time he had worked on his own (much to the government’s very vocal dismay), he had seen more than his fair share of anomalous events.
Cooper had seen more than twenty of what he considered to be legitimate ghosts. He had seen a dozen UFOs, three of which had been less than fifty feet from the ground. He had seen an old man levitate and had watched a priest exorcise three demons from a teenager’s body. And that was just scratching the surface.
So a ghostly figure standing on top of a rock out at sea during the night didn’t really spook him. He had to admit, though…it was pretty damn cool.
He aimed the flashlight at the rock farthest out. The light didn’t shine quite that far, so it barely illuminated it at all. Not only that, but the rock closest to them was catching most of the light and blocking it from the one behind it.
“Hold this, please,” Cooper said, handing Stephanie the flashlight.
When she took it, he leaned down and started to roll up his pants legs. He had packed a few pairs of shorts but hadn’t wanted to wear them out to dinner. And of course, he hadn’t anticipated some late night water-wading when he had gotten dressed.
He managed to roll his pants legs up to his knee with a little bit of effort and then took off his shirt. It wasn’t until he had his shirt coming over his head that he realized that he was getting partially undressed in front of Stephanie. She’d seen him naked many times before, but he wasn’t in the same shape now. He assumed she wouldn’t care and then flushed those thoughts out completely when he realized what he was about to do.
Priorities, Cooper…priorities, he thought.
He started walking towards the water and only made it two steps before Stephanie stopped him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to wade out and see if there’s anyone out there.”
“That water is easily over your head. You really feel like going for a night swim?.”
“Jenny Blackstock said that there are sandbars all over the place around here. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
“And maybe you’ll drown.”
“Can you swim?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then come save me if you think I’m drowning. Do you want to keep the flashlight up here?”
She looked to the left and then to the right and saw that there was no one else nearby. Much further down to the right, back towards the Blackstock’s house, a man was walking a dog but he was headed in the other direction.
“Yeah,” she said. “If you don’t mind. Just please hurry up and be careful.”
He nodded and started walking out into the water. It was much chillier than he had remembered from earlier in the day when he had stuck his feet in. It took his breath for a moment, but the feel of the water wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
He got out to his knees and had to put forth a little effort to wade against the small oncoming waves. He kept going out, the water now up to his thighs, when he felt the sludgy sand beneath his feet start to rise. He had come to one of the sandbars that Jenny Blackstock had mentioned. He walked further out, rising up out of the water. The sandbar levelled out and he found himself in water up to his calves.
He looked back to Stephanie and gave her a thumbs up. Even in the darkness, he could sense her eye-rolling. She pointed the flashlight in his direction, but it did little good. When he turned back towards the rocks—the first one now no more than a dozen or so feet away—he peered out to the abyss-like darkness of the sea ahead. He cringed, not liking any of his body in that water, even if it was just his feet.
He looked away and stared dead ahead. A bit of the flashlight’s soft beam could be seen in the water ahead of him, so he followed it. Stephanie was keeping it aimed directly in front of him, tracing out a path to the rocks. He kept his eyes on the point where the beam faded out, flush against the side of the first rock. The sandbar remained level and he was able to cover the few feet with no problem.
When he reached the first large rock, he peered up its side and thought he could possibly climb it if he had to. But if this sandbar remained level, he thought he could likely just walk around it and directly to the second rock where they had seen the figure.
“Anyone out here?” he called out.
His only response was the soft slushing of water around the base of the rocks and the gentle crashing of small nighttime waves.
He walked to the right in order to slink around the first rock and felt the sandbar drop off. There was no gradual decline to the sand, but a complete drop. He realized this too late, though. His right foot went plunging off of the sandbar and when he reached out to the first rock to catch his balance, he fell over.
He went under the water for a moment and when he popped back up, he was ashamed to realize that he had been utterly terrified when he had gone down. He set his feet down, found the ocean floor, and stood. The floor beneath his feet was rocky—part of the large rocks that loomed over him to the left, he assumed. The water was now up to his shoulders and he had to stand on his tiptoes to prevent water from slapping him in the face.
“Are you okay?” Steph called out from behind him.
“Yeah,” he said, spitting out salty sea water. “Ran out of sandbar.”
He reached out to the left and found the surface of the first rock. When he pulled himself around to the back of it, he found an empty space between the rocks that was much smaller than he had expected when he had viewed them from the beach earlier in the day. Behind the first rock, it almost looked as if the rocks overlapped beneath the water. He also saw that the water that flowed between the rocks swirled in a weird path before finally escaping the stone clutches and continuing its journey to shore.
Using a slippery grip on the first rock and the awkward bobbing of his feet to guide him, he waded over to the space between the stones. He felt the hard rocky surface of one of the rocks beneath his feet, but wasn’t sure which rock he was standing on. One thing he was certain of, though, was that the current of water that ran between the two rocks was incredibly strong. He held tightly to the side of the first rock and still had to firmly plant his legs not to get swept away.
He wasn’t sure why, but something about the way the water flowed between that small V-shaped space between the rocks seemed strange. He had no doubt that if he were to let go of the side of the rock, it would easily sweep him through the space between the rocks. He then wondered if someone could get stuck between them and drown when the tide got high enough.
Those are stupid thoughts to be having right now, he thought.
He looked to the second rock and was pretty sure that he could make it over there without the water sweeping him off to the other side of the rocks. But really, what was the point? If there had been a person up there earlier, what was he going to do? Swim after them and ask what they were up to?
Hardly.
And if his hunch was cor
rect—if what they had spotted was a ghost or spirit or something similar—going to that second rock to find it was futile.
Defeated, wet, and with legs that were growing tired from fighting the tide, Cooper figured that it was time to go back. If there was something to be found here, he wasn’t going to find it at night, anyway.
He turned back, already anxious for the relief of the sandbar. But as he made his first sluggish stride away from the side of the rock, he heard something that caught his attention. It was slight, buried beneath the sloshing noise of the water that churned between the rocks. At first, he thought it was nothing and nearly ignored it. But once he heard it, it was hard to not hear it.
It sounded like someone pouring water into a bowl, only denser. It was hard to tell where it was coming from, but he thought that it was directly beside him. He lunged back to the side of the rock, catching himself along the side. He scaled the side of the larger rock and went to the back of it. He felt the water between the rocks sucking at him, trying to pull him away, but he clung steadfast to the side. He looked down to where the water was splashing against the side of the rock and thought he saw the source of the sound he had heard. In the dark, it was impossible to tell for sure, but he thought there was an anomaly there.
Curious, Cooper splashed back out into the water and with two labored strokes, made it back to the sandbar. He stood there for a moment and caught his breath. He then looked to Stephanie and held up a hand.
“I need the flashlight. Can you throw it this far?”
She looked at the flashlight, considering. He knew that she wasn’t wondering whether or not she could get it to him (she was stronger than he was when it came to arm strength), but whether or not she wanted to part with it. After a few seconds, she cocked her arm back and threw it in a perfect underhanded arc to him. Her aim was dead on and he caught it with no problem.
He turned to the rocks and saw that they looked almost slimy with the flashlight’s beam directly upon them.. Holding the flashlight up over his head, Cooper walked back off of the sandbar. He was ready for the drop this time and managed to keep his head above the water.
As he directed the light around the rocks, he got a very brief sense of familiarity—of venturing into uncertain places where any form of danger might be around the corner. Although his relationship with the FBI and the shadow organizations that had later sought him out had spoiled him and left him disenchanted over his career, he couldn’t deny that he had loved it. He felt a slight pang of regret over his past as he stood neck deep in the water, sketching the flashlight along the base of the two large rocks ahead of him.
Having only one free hand this time, it was harder to grab onto the first rock. He stretched his arm out and managed to dig into a sizeable crevice with his fingers. He pulled himself forward and shuffled his feet blindly under the water for some sort of foot hold. He found one and managed to pull himself up a bit as he climbed around to the rear side of the rock again.
He shone the flashlight into the V-shaped region of water between the rocks, looking for the source of the pouring sound he had heard. Now that he couldn’t unhear it, he thought that it sounded like rain water channeling down through a city drain. Only this drain would be very deep and the water was much stronger than simple rain spillage.
With the flashlight, it was easy to find the source. Roughly three inches above where the water was currently splashing against the rock, there was a large crack that was taking in water. The crack was roughly the size of a soccer ball and was located along a curve in the rock that made it hard to spot. If the tide had have been just a bit higher, Cooper would not have been able to hear it, much less known it was there.
Pressing the flashlight against the side of the rock, Cooper managed to angle himself over to his right in order to get closer to it. His footing slipped a few times in the muck along the submerged base of the rock but he somehow kept his head from going under.
He was now facing the hole and was able to place his fingers along its sides. He pulled himself up by it, having to fight against the surging water between the rocks. He aimed the flashlight into the hole and saw nothing. There was only blackness, but it was not the solid blackness that made up the rest of the rocks. He was fairly certain that he was looking into a deep, dark hole.
He could hear water splashing down inside of it. The sound it made led him to believe that the hole (if that’s what it was) was rather deep.
He leaned closer into it and gave a fairly loud “Hello!”
His voice reverberated and gave a slight echo. Combined with the water, it was difficult to tell just what was going on in there. He felt around along the steep angled face of the rock, looking for small stones but found only slime and grit.
Knowing that there was a good chance that he’d promptly regret the decision to do so, Cooper cut off the flashlight and popped open the tab on the end of it. Doing this required two hands and he nearly slid right off of the rock and into the water. He pressed himself into the rock as he worked though, making sure he stayed tight to it.
He slid the batteries out of the flashlight and palmed them in his hand. He selected one and dropped it into the hole. He leaned forward and listened, making a silent count. He did his best to shut out the sound of the tide and the waves crashing on the shore.
One, two, three—
He heard the battery clatter off of something but sensed that it had not come to a complete stop.
—four, five, six—
He heard the battery hit something else. This time the sound was more solid. Cooper was pretty sure it had hit bottom. He wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but his mind returned to the fact that on the other side of the beach, closer to the road and where they had parked Stephanie’s car, the ground was rocky and uneven in most places.
It made him wonder just how expansive the open spaces beneath this rock might be.
“Cooper?”
Stephanie’s voice was remarkably clear over the sounds of the sloshing water between the rocks and the waves. He carefully inched his way along the side of the rock, carrying the now useless flashlight in his left hand. He got to the side of the rock and looked out to her. With no light source and no way to really investigate the hole at night, he figured it was time to head back anyway.
But then he saw her face. Even in the muted moonlight, he could see that she was scared. She was frightened and she was pointing directly at him.
No, not at him.
Behind him.
Cooper turned his head, not daring to let go of the side of the rock, and screamed.
10
A man stood on the second rock behind Cooper. His face was rotten and he had no eyes, only black sockets. When he grinned maliciously at Cooper, the man revealed teeth that were nothing more than brown shapes that looked like wood.
The scream that came out of Cooper’s mouth sounded strange to him. After all he had seen in his line of work, it took a lot to frighten him and he had developed something of a tolerance for fear. But this gruesome figure had come out of nowhere and was standing less than three feet away.
Only, the man wasn’t standing.
There was no way to firmly plant his feet on the sloped surface of the second rock. From what Cooper could tell, the man was floating or, more likely, he was not a man at all.
It took Cooper less than two seconds to take all of this in. He finished his scream by allowing his fear to also control his hands and feet. He released the rock and went into the water. The current between the rocks caught him at once, tugging him hard to the right. He let it take him and when it pulled him under, he swam furiously until he felt the push of the tide, carrying him towards the shore. He then realized that he was now on the opposite side of the rocks and that the sandbar was nowhere to be found. He swam with it and did not swimming until he could fully place his feet on the bottom.
Still, he managed to stand up and when he did, he felt the undertow tugging at him. He lost his footing and went und
er, his head still craned back as he looked for the figure on the second rock. All he saw, though, was the water as it went over his head. He took in a mouthful of salt water and started coughing and gagging as he tried to swim towards the beach.
When the next series of waves came surging forward, he caught the current and swam with it again. He kept stroking forward until he felt his knees dragging on dirt. He then stood up and ambled the rest of the way to the beach, still coughing up sea water.
He turned back to the rocks and was not at all surprised to see that the eyeless figure that had so badly scared him was no longer there.
Steph came running to him as he went to his butt in the sand. Between the exercise of maneuvering around the rocks, the genuine scare, and then fighting against the current to get back to shore, Cooper was winded.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He gave her a thumbs-up as he coughed up more sea water. Again, he looked back out to the rocks, hoping that they might offer up their secrets again.
“Cooper, what the hell was that?”
“I don’t know. A ghost, for sure. But I don’t know which kind.”
“There’s more than one kind of ghost?”
“Yeah. Intelligent, residual, poltergeist, and demonic entity.”
“And which was that?”
“Are you telling me you believe in ghosts now?”
Stephanie looked to the rocks and shrugged her shoulders. “Cooper, the man—or ghost or whatever it was—was floating. I didn’t even see his feet. So yeah, I’m off the fence now.”
“Welcome to the crazy side,” Cooper said. “As for that ghost, I don’t know which kind it was. Pretty sure it’s not demonic. But it’s impossible to tell for sure without knowing more about the location.”
“You think it’s related to the Blackstock’s house?”
“It would be really coincidental if it wasn’t. So yeah, I think it might.”
Stephanie was still looking out to the rocks. Cooper saw that she was trembling slightly. He didn’t think it was because she was cold.