Swimmer

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Jennie has a real bad conscience about what she did to Jane all those years ago and she’s prepared to help. In return – well, I’ve agreed not to report her to the police.’

  ‘I hope she realizes how dangerous it could be.’

  ‘She does, yes. I’ve warned her. But she says she’s still prepared to do it. She’s grief-stricken about Mikey, of course she is. But I think she’s still genuinely guilty about what she did to Jane … and what Jane’s spirit has been doing to get her revenge.’

  ‘So, what’s your plan?’

  ‘You raise up Jane’s spirit. Once you’ve done that, I’ll be able to see her – so we’ll know where she is and what she’s going to do next. We’ll fill the bathtub, which will give her all the water she needs to turn herself into the Swimmer – and Jennie will be in the bathroom too.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Once she takes shape as the Swimmer, we pull Jennie clear, and then we throw gasoline all over her, and set her alight. We have to fight one element with another – at least as far as Laura’s old occult books tell us.’

  ‘And where are you planning on doing this? Not here, I hope? I don’t want you burning the whole place down!’

  ‘No … we’ll do it back at my apartment in Venice. Everything’s packed up and ready for me to move. The bathroom’s all tiled, so there won’t be much of a risk of the fire getting out of control. And just to be doubly safe, I’ll borrow a couple of fire extinguishers from college.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Susan. ‘I’d be willing to do it, but I don’t think Michael is going to approve.’

  ‘Can’t you make your own decision?’

  ‘You still don’t understand, do you? Michael saved my life, and every minute of every day he goes on saving my life. I’m carrying a time-bomb inside me, Jim. A time-bomb that could explode at any second, and kill me. I have to be grateful to Michael for every breath that I take.’

  She hadn’t even finished speaking when they heard a high-pitched gargle from the kitchen, followed by the crash of crockery. It was Medlar Tree. Washington jumped and said, ‘Jesus! I thought that guy was dumb!’ But all the same he barged his way through to the kitchen, Jim and Susan and Laura following close behind him.

  Medlar Tree was standing over the sink with his back to them. He had stopped gargling but he was quivering violently, as if he had just been electrocuted. He had dropped a large Chinese teapot on to the floor, where it was lying broken in three pieces. He was making an odd grunting noise, ‘Unh, unh, unh,’ as if he were finding it difficult to breathe. Jim and Washington cautiously approached him.

  ‘Michael – Medlar Tree – what’s happening? What’s wrong?’

  Michael still didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to them. Either that or he still refused to break his vow of silence.

  ‘Michael, come on – tell me what’s wrong.’

  Jim came closer, and it was only then that he saw that Medlar Tree was being gripped by the throat by a transparent arm reaching out of the sink … an arm that was made of nothing but steaming water. His white make-up was dripping and his cheeks were streaked with black. The watery fingers had a tight grip around his Adam’s apple and his whole neck was scalded scarlet.

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Washington. He reached out toward the arm, to pull it away from Medlar Tree’s throat, but Jim said, ‘Don’t! That’s boiling hot water!’

  ‘Then what?’

  Jim wildly looked around. ‘Then – then – turn on the Insinkerator.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘The Insinkerator! Turn it on!’

  Washington flicked down the switch of the sink disposal unit, and there was a sudden blurt of noise. The arm twisted around and around, still clinging on to Medlar Tree’s throat, and then suddenly it spun faster and faster and was whipped away down the drain. Within seconds it had vanished.

  Jim soaked a dishcloth in icy cold water and clapped it over Medlar Tree’s face and held it there. Washington guided him back to the kitchen table and helped him to sit down.

  ‘Michael, are you okay? Come on, Michael, tell me what happened.’

  ‘I was warming the teapot,’ Medlar Tree whispered, still trembling … ‘I filled it with boiling water, swilled it around and threw it down the sink. Then wham. It came back up at me and tried to strangle me.’

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Better, thanks. My face is still burning.’

  ‘Why don’t you go take that make-up off? Then we can see if you need to go to hospital.’

  ‘I’m okay, I’m fine. I’m just shocked, that’s all. That water came up and grabbed me like a goddamned conger eel. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even move … it was pressing my nerve.’

  ‘All right, now, take it easy.’

  Susan was standing in the doorway, looking fraught. ‘Michael, are you okay? If anything ever happened to you …’

  ‘I’m okay, I’m fine. Let my get my breath back, that’s all.’

  ‘It was her, wasn’t it?’ said Susan. ‘It was the Swimmer.’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Jim told her. ‘It’s just like I told you. Anybody I know … anybody who’s been helping me … she’s going to try to drown them all.’

  ‘In that case, we have to do something about her,’ said Michael. ‘We have to summon her up, like you said, and we have to burn her.’

  ‘You heard us talking about that?’

  Michael nodded. ‘Taking care of Susan … that involves keeping my eyes open and my ears pricked up.’

  ‘Then you’ll allow her to hold a seance?’

  ‘If we’re going to be chancing death every time we go near water, then I don’t see that we have very much alternative, do you? All I want you to promise is that you won’t expose Susan to any more danger than you have to.’

  ‘I can’t promise you that there won’t be some risk involved.’

  ‘Well, that’s something we’ll have to face up to when the time comes, isn’t it? God, my throat hurts. If you guys hadn’t been here, that thing would have strangled me for sure.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jim, ‘if you’re really prepared to go ahead with this, I’ll fix my apartment up for tomorrow evening. I’ll get the gasoline and the fire extinguishers. All you have to do is bring Susan.’

  Michael gingerly rubbed his throat. ‘I’ll never forgive you for bringing this on us, you know that.’

  ‘I didn’t bring it on you. It was Susan who approached me, remember?’

  ‘So what are you trying to tell me? That it was our fault?’

  ‘No … I’m just saying that fate moves in very logical ways, and that maybe Susan was meant to approach me. It could be the answer to her problems, as well as ours.’

  Michael went into a spasm of coughing. When he had finished, he said, ‘Let me tell you one thing, Mr Rook. If this goes wrong – if anything happens to Susan – then you won’t just have the Swimmer to watch out for. You’ll have me, too.’

  Fifteen

  Mervyn said, ‘This is incredibly risky. You could burn the whole building down to the ground.’

  ‘I don’t think we have any alternative,’ said Jim, as he carried two two-gallon cans of gasoline into the bathroom and set them down beside the washbasin.

  ‘Can’t you do it outside? By a lake? By a pond? By the sea, even?’

  ‘Too much water there. Water gives the Swimmer strength. We wouldn’t be able to produce enough fire to overwhelm it.’

  ‘Well I’m warning you, Jim, if anything happens to my apartment … I’ve got some very precious stuff in there, quite apart from moi.’ Mervyn was wearing a black-leather biker’s jacket, a short red skirt and fishnet stockings, and Judy Garland-type ruby slippers. He was carrying Tibbles Two under one arm, so that her legs dangled, and it was obvious from the expression on TT’s face that she was mortified.

  ‘You really shouldn’t carry her around like that,’ Jim remarked. ‘She’s not a purse.’

  Mervyn tickled th
e top of TT’s head. ‘I know … but she’s such a darling. She and I are going to get on famously, aren’t we, Tibbles? Don’t you love your new daddy, then, sweetcheeks?’

  Jim took a final look around the apartment. All of the cardboard boxes containing his books, clothes and sound equipment were pushed well away from the bathroom door, right on the opposite side of the room. Most of the furniture was stacked in the bedroom, including his blue-painted rocking horse and his half-packed statue of Hanuman the ape-god. He had managed to borrow three red-painted fire extinguishers from college, and they were resting against the wall where he could quickly reach them if the flames got out of control.

  It was almost nine o’clock. Three times three. There was a knock at the door and Washington came in, wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans, followed by Laura, who was dressed all in white, with a white silk scarf tied around her head.

  ‘Susan not here yet?’ asked Washington.

  ‘She called about ten minutes ago. She’s on her way.’

  ‘I wish you could think of some other way of doing this,’ said Mervyn. He tried to change TT from one arm to the other, but TT took advantage of him loosening his grip and struggled herself free. ‘Ow, you beastly creature, you scratched me! There’s cats for you – same as women, no gratitude.’

  Laura said, ‘I tried to find out more about Swimmers, but I pretty much drew a blank. There’s a mention of them on one of those urban-legend websites, but it doesn’t tell you anything we don’t already know.’

  Jim put his arm around her shoulders. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned about dealing with supernatural threats, Laura, it’s that you have to play it as it comes. It’s no use relying on myth or legend or anecdotal accounts. Each spirit is an individual, and each spirit is looking for something different, even if it’s nothing more than frightening the pants off the people they left behind.’

  ‘How about a cup of coffee while we’re waiting?’ Mervyn suggested.

  ‘No – I don’t want any water in here apart from the water in the bathtub. I’ve tightened up all of the faucets with a spanner and I’ve strapped down the lid of the toilet with packing tape. I’ve even emptied out TT’s water bowl.’

  They waited a few minutes more and then Jennie appeared, followed by Susan and Michael. Jennie was wearing a simple black dress with a black pearl necklace. Susan was dressed in a padded jerkin of dark crimson velvet that made her look like a medieval page-boy, and black leggings. Michael was out of his Medlar Tree ensemble, and wearing a sweatshirt and tatty embroidered jeans. His neck and one side of his face were still red from where the water-hand had tried to strangle him.

  ‘Well, this is it,’ said Jim. ‘We’re all here, so we might as well get started. Nine o’clock is supposed to be an auspicious time for spirits, isn’t it?’

  ‘For vengeful spirits, yes,’ Susan agreed. ‘Are you going to show me your bathroom? I need to make sure that we can do this safely.’

  Jim took her into the bathroom. It was small and L-shaped, with the tub on the left-hand side and the washbasin opposite, in the alcove. There was a small high window with a stained-glass fleur-de-lis in it.

  ‘Can that window be opened?’ she asked.

  Jim shook his head. ‘You don’t think the Swimmer could get out of there, do you?’

  ‘You never know. You have to take all the precautions you can think of, and then some. If we summon this spirit today, and don’t succeed in getting rid of her for good, then the likelihood is that she’s going to come after us, only ten times more vengeful than she was before. Like I explained to you, spirits usually feel resentful because they think we’ve forgotten them – because they feel we don’t love them any more. On top of that, if they get the idea that we actively want to get rid of them … well, that’s trouble with an upper-case T.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Jim asked her. ‘You don’t need us to sit around a table or anything, do you?’

  ‘No, that’s not necessary. Besides, there isn’t enough space. All we have to do is fill the tub with water. Then we’ll stand around it and hold hands together to increase the strength of our spiritual link. I’ll be able to talk to the spirit even before she appears … but of course I won’t be able to see her. Only you can do that, Jim.

  ‘We’re counting on her entering the water and taking on the shape of the Swimmer. The instant she comes out of the bath, Michael and Washington will pour gasoline on top of her.’

  ‘Just one hefty splash,’ Jim warned them. ‘We don’t want to blow up the whole apartment building.’

  Susan said, ‘When you’ve done that, you take your gasoline cans and you get out of the bathroom double-quick. That’s when Jim will throw his cigarette lighter into the bathtub and set the Swimmer alight. Hopefully, the fire will be more than enough to evaporate her.’

  ‘And if it isn’t?’ asked Jennie.

  ‘I said “hopefully”. This is a big risk – not just physically, but spiritually too.’

  Jim said, ‘The most important thing is to think and act quickly and clearly. Whatever you see – no matter how strange and frightening it is – try to keep your cool. Your survival may depend on it.’

  ‘Hey, man, I’m cool,’ said Washington. ‘I’m always cool. You know that.’

  ‘Okay then, let’s get started. Michael – you want to bring those jerry-cans over here by the side of the bath? I’ll start running the water.’

  The plumbing in Jim’s apartment building dated from the 1930s, and it took nearly five minutes for the bath to be filled up to the halfway mark, with the pipes shuddering and groaning in protest. All the time, Washington talked quietly to Laura, and Laura kept on nodding, but the rest of them were too tense to say anything.

  Eventually, Jim turned the faucets off, and tightened them as hard as he could. He didn’t want Jane to have more water than she needed to form herself into the Swimmer. Water, after all, was the element which gave her spirit its power to take on a human shape, and drown them – and the more water she had at her disposal, the more powerful she would be.

  ‘That’s it. Let’s take the lids off those jerry-cans and have them ready. Don’t forget – as soon as the Swimmer rises out of the water, splash your gasoline and run. And whatever you do, don’t drop your can.’

  ‘We got you.’

  They shuffled themselves into a semi-circle around the side of the bath. Jim caught sight of himself in the mirror beside the bath and thought how ridiculous they all looked, five grown people standing around a tub of water, holding hands. Anybody who accidentally walked in would have thought they belonged to some nutty sect – Druids or Culdees or the Ancient Order of Bath Worshippers.

  Susan closed her eyes and said, ‘Jane Tullett, I am calling you through from the spirit world. I am calling you to meet us where death and life converge. I have people here who wish to talk to you; and a very special person who needs to tell you how deeply remorseful she is about the way you died.

  ‘Listen to me, Jane. I know that you’re angry. I know that your spirit never seems to be able to find the repose that it seeks. But I am offering you a way out. I am offering you rest and contentment. Come through, Jane. I know that you can hear me. Come through and meet us face to face, so that we can give you the peace you so desperately crave.’

  There was a long silence, during which the only sound was the swish of traffic from the streets outside and the deep, dyspeptic grumblings of the waterpipes. Then Jim heard a noise like nothing he had ever heard before. It was soft and high and incredibly unsettling, like somebody running their moistened finger around the rim of a brandy glass. Only it was much eerier than that: it had elements of the wind in it, blowing under a doorway in a deserted house. It had elements of the sea in it, churning in the darkness of a winter’s night. It had elements of crying, and pain, and utter loneliness.

  ‘I can hear you, Jane,’ said Susan. Jim felt Susan’s thin, silver-ringed fingers closing tightly around his. ‘I can hear you coming cl
oser. Come on, Jane, don’t be afraid. We’re here to help you, not to harm you.’

  ‘You could have saved me …’ breathed an unearthly voice. It sounded so close that Jim jolted in shock. Not only was it close – it was close behind him.

  ‘… You let the water take me, and you didn’t do anything … you stood by and let me drown …’

  Jim could actually feel Jane’s freezing cold breath on the side of his neck. He turned around, and there she was, only just visible, standing less than two feet away, a faintly shuddering outline. He could see her wet hair sticking to her scalp. The water ran in a constant cascade from her nose and her lips, and the droplets coursed down between her bare thighs and ran between her toes. She had been drowned: so she would always be wet, until she found her release.

  ‘She’s here,’ said Jim, clutching Susan’s hand even tighter. ‘For Christ’s sake, she’s right behind us. Breathing down our necks.’

  ‘I can’t feel her,’ said Susan, twisting her head around in a panic. ‘I can’t feel her – tell me where she is!’ Jim grappled her hand and laid it on Jane’s almost-transparent shoulder. ‘She’s here … can’t you feel her? She’s standing right here.’

  Susan kept her hand where it was. ‘I can feel … coldness,’ she whispered. ‘I can feel wet.’

  ‘That’s right. Until she can find somebody to release her, she’s always going to be the same way she was the morning she died.’

  Jane’s spirit figure glided around them like the dancing reflection from a swimming pool, until she stood close behind Jennie, and touched her hair with her invisible fingertips.