Swimmer

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Didn’t any of you like me?’ she whispered, turning and looking at Jim with her watery, transparent eyes. ‘Don’t tell me there wasn’t one single person in that whole college who liked me?’

  ‘I can hear her,’ said Jennie. ‘I can hear her talking!’

  ‘Jennie … stay calm,’ said Jim. He squeezed her hand to reassure her. Then he turned to Jane and said, ‘Of course people liked you. You were one of the best students I ever had. You were bright, you were popular, you were always laughing.’

  ‘Yes, and every other girl was jealous because I was going steady with George.’

  Jennie looked blindly around her, trying to see where Jane was standing. ‘You’re right, Jane, we were jealous, and I was the most jealous of all. But that was a long time ago, Jane, and we were all very much younger then, and the things that seemed to be important when we were nineteen … well, they don’t seem to matter very much, not today.’

  ‘Not to you, maybe. But then you didn’t lose your life, did you?’

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry. It was more of an act of passion than anything else.’

  ‘What was? What was an act of passion?’

  ‘I was angry, Jane. George always wanted you, instead of me, and I could never understand why. I thought that I was much prettier than you, my folks were better off. But George always came back to you – even after he’d been flirting with all of those sophomores. He should have been mine, Jane. Couldn’t you see? He should have been mine.’

  ‘So what are you telling me?’ asked the spirit, in a voice like a chilly draft.

  ‘So I pushed you under. You don’t know how often I confessed it. I confessed it in dreams. I confessed it when I was praying at church. I drowned you, Jane, because I believed that if you were dead George would suddenly realize how much he didn’t miss you and how much he really loved me.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Did who what?’ asked Jennie. She was growing increasingly flustered and frightened.

  ‘Did George realize how much he didn’t miss me, and how much he loved you?’

  Jennie hesitated, and two large tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘No. He missed you very, very badly, and he never noticed me, ever.’

  Jim said, ‘Jane … you can see how much Jennie regrets what she did. I’m asking you now to forgive her. I’m asking you to forgive all of us. We failed you, I can see that now. But don’t take it out on innocent people like Mikey and Dennis and Dottie. They never did anything to you.’

  Jane moved further around, to the end of the bathtub. ‘Water,’ she said. ‘Were you thinking of taking a bath?’

  ‘We were thinking of nothing else but you, and how we could put you to rest.’

  ‘Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, to put me to rest? Then you could conveniently forget that Jennie deliberately drowned me, and the rest of you stood around and watched me while they broke my breastbone, and still didn’t manage to save my life? You wouldn’t have to worry any more about what I could have been, if I had lived.’

  ‘Jane … nobody’s trying to evade their responsibilities. But it’s all over; and it was ten years ago; and little kids like Mikey don’t deserve to drown because of something that happened to you.’

  ‘You may be right,’ said Jane, in a voice that sounded like somebody speaking into an empty washing machine. ‘But who am I to judge? Once the water takes you, you become water. And nothing on earth can ever exist without water. Water can take your life away in a matter of seconds – look at me. But it gives life, too. It’s the greatest single force in the world.’

  ‘Jennie here wants you to know that she’s truly sorry for what she did to you. She hopes that she can make it up to you somehow.’

  ‘She wants to make it up to me, for drowning me, when I was only nineteen years old? With my whole life in front of me?’

  ‘Jane – listen to me, I’m begging you. If there’s anything that we can do, please tell me what it is. But I can’t see any more of my students hurt – nor my friends, either.’

  ‘You should have thought of that on the day you drowned me.’

  Without another word, Jane’s spirit figure shimmered down to the end of the bathtub. Jim could see her, but nobody else could, and they all turned their heads warily from one side to the other. Washington looked even more wildly around than the rest of them and kept silently mouthing, ‘Where? Where is that sucker, Mr Rook?’

  ‘You guys ready?’ Jim asked them in a matter-of-fact voice. At the same time, he could see Jane’s spirit climbing over the back of the tub and into the water. She disappeared from sight almost immediately, as if she had melted.

  ‘She’s in the water!’ Jim shouted out. ‘Get that gasoline ready!’

  Michael and Washington hefted up their jerry-cans. They all stared down at the bathwater. It lolled and slopped, but it didn’t look as if it had anything in it.

  ‘Are you sure she’s in there?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Oh, you bet. I saw her climb in, and I expect Susan can feel her aura.’

  ‘She’s there all right,’ said Susan. ‘I can sense these very, very emotional vibrations. She’s feeling angry and sad, both at the same time, but mostly angry.’

  ‘Supposing she doesn’t come out?’ asked Jennie, still hysterical. ‘What happens if she doesn’t come out?’

  ‘Oh, she’ll come out,’ said Jim. ‘And if by any remote chance she doesn’t – well, we’ll have to do what Mervyn did, and pull out the plug.’

  ‘Well, you can put your hand in the water and pull it out,’ said Mervyn, ‘because I’m certainly not going to.’

  They waited and waited, while the surface of the water gently stirred.

  ‘I don’t think there’s nobody in there, man,’ said Washington, after almost three minutes had passed. ‘I mean, I can’t see nothing.’

  ‘Wait … don’t get impatient.’

  ‘I’m not impatient. I just don’t want to be fooled, that’s all … standing here all evening staring at some bathtub with nobody in it.’

  ‘Ssh,’ said Jim. ‘She’s probably thinking what to do next.’

  ‘I can’t stand it,’ said Jennie. ‘I really can’t stand it any longer. She won’t forgive me, will she? She’s going to go on haunting me for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Not if this works.’

  But another three minutes went by, and still the Swimmer didn’t appear.

  ‘She gone, man,’ said Washington, shifting his jerry-can from one hand to the other.

  ‘I can feel her,’ said Laura. ‘It’s like Susan says … she’s sad and bitter, both at the same time. She wants us to love her but she hates us for what we’ve done to her.’

  ‘I think you imagining all of this,’ Washington protested. ‘Her spirit was here for sure, I heard her like the rest of you. But she ain’t in that bathtub, not now. She long gone. She probably watching us from some other dimension, laughing her butt off.’

  He laid down his jerry-can and prodded the surface of the water with his finger.

  ‘Washington – don’t!’ Jim warned him.

  But Washington prodded the water again and again, and caused no more disturbance than a pattern of ripples. ‘See … there ain’t nothing here, man. We all standing around here scared of nothing.’

  To emphasize his contempt, he swept his arm into the water from one end of the bath to the other. ‘What did I tell you? There’s nothing in here but – sheee-it!’

  With a shattering splash, a watery figure reared out of the bath and seized Washington’s arm, dragging him over the side of the tub and into the water. It pushed him right down to the bottom, kicking and wrestling, and the surface of the bath was a froth of bubbles.

  ‘Get him out of there!’ Susan shouted. ‘Jim – quick! Get him out of there!’

  Jim tried to grip the Swimmer’s shoulders, but even though the Swimmer was so strong, she was only water, and his hands went right through. He swung his arms and punched at the Swimmer’s head, ag
ain and again, but it was just like punching the water that comes streaming out of a faucet. Her head splashed, and then went back to its original shape.

  All the time, Washington was pinned down on the bottom of the tub, and Jim could see his eyes wide with terror.

  ‘Pull the plug out!’ said Michael.

  But Susan said, ‘No! If we lose her now, she’ll only want to drown us all the more!’

  Jim grabbed one of Washington’s arms and tried to heave him out, but the Swimmer pushed him away, soaking his shirt and his pants. He tried again, but this time the Swimmer hit him across the side of the head and sent him staggering back across the bathroom. He stumbled, lost his footing and fell against the towel rail, bruising his back.

  Jennie started to scream, the way she must have screamed when she pretended to find Jane’s body in the college pool. Laura tried to be more practical, and distract the Swimmer by slapping at her back with a wet towel, but the Swimmer ignored her, and kept Washington’s head under the water, no matter how ferociously he fought back at her. The bath was only six or seven inches deep, because most of the water had been used by the Swimmer herself to take on her physical form, but it was enough for Washington to drown.

  ‘You have to pull out the plug!’ said Michael. ‘She’s going to kill him if you don’t!’

  Jim made his way back to the edge of the bathtub on his knees. The Swimmer didn’t even bother to look at him. Her watery shape kept shifting and changing, so that it looked as if it were made out of melting glass – but one thing that didn’t alter was the expression on her face. An expression of total, almost maniacal hatred.

  Jim thrust his hand into the water and tried to find the plug. But the Swimmer shoved him away with another burst of spray, and when he tried again she shifted Washington sideways so that his head was jammed right on top of the wastepipe. Washington was panicking now. He had run out of air and his arms and legs were jerking convulsively.

  ‘Get him out of there!’ screamed Jennie. ‘Can’t you get him out of there?’

  Mervyn said, ‘What if we all pull him together? Come on, let’s all pull him together!’

  But at that moment, something extraordinary happened. Tibbles Two came running into the bathroom – really running, faster than Jim had ever seen her running before. Without any hesitation she jumped up on to the top of the laundry basket and then on to the rim of the bathtub.

  ‘TT?’ Jim called her. ‘What the hell are you—?’

  TT flattened her ears back and bared her teeth and let out a vicious, cackling hiss. Her fur stood up on end until she looked as if she were twice her normal size … a hellcat, with glaring yellow eyes. She leaped on to the Swimmer’s back, plunging straight into her, her claws scrabbling and scratching at the water as if she thought she could tear it to pieces.

  The Swimmer twisted around and lashed out at her – obviously surprised and upset. TT danced around the bathtub, her fur completely drenched, but unstoppably vicious, clawing at the Swimmer’s face and arms.

  Jim shouted, ‘Michael – Mervyn! Give me a hand here!’

  While the Swimmer tried to fend off Tibbles Two, the three of them grabbed hold of Washington’s arms and T-shirt and heaved him out of the water on to the bathroom floor. He coughed and coughed and sicked up almost a quart of water, but Jim didn’t give him time to lie on the floor and recover.

  ‘Out of here! Out! All of you! Quick!’

  Michael and Mervyn dragged Washington along the floor and out to the living-room. Jennie, Laura and Susan followed behind.

  Susan took hold of Jim’s sleeve and said, ‘For God’s sake be careful.’

  But Jim had already lifted up one of the jerry-cans and was swinging it backward and forward.

  In the bathtub, the Swimmer was still furiously struggling with TT. Jim couldn’t guess why she was so distressed by a cat, but then TT had never been an ordinary cat, and if cats had a natural antipathy for water, then maybe water felt the same way about cats.

  ‘TT!’ he called at her, and whistled. ‘TT, get out of there – now!’

  Usually TT took no notice of anything he said, and he had to throw sneakers at her to stop her from jumping up on the table and sniffing at his dinner. But now she lifted her head and looked at him, and she must have understood how serious he was because she ducked underneath the Swimmer’s arm and sprang up on to the edge of the bathtub again, and dropped to the floor. She was so wet that she looked like a skinny kind of rat instead of a cat. Jim gave her a kick and she scurried out of the bathroom door.

  Now he didn’t hesitate. He turned toward the bathtub. The Swimmer had already half risen out of it, glistening in the colored light that came through the stained-glass window. She smoothed back her hair and then she stood up straight.

  Jim knew that he could close the bathroom door and run off and she wouldn’t be able to catch up with him. But she would catch him one day, when he wasn’t expecting it, and neither he nor his former students could spend the rest of their lives staying away from showers, swimming pools and lakes.

  He swung the jerry-can back behind him.

  ‘Think what you’re doing,’ said the Swimmer.

  ‘I’m thinking, all right. I’m sorry it has to end this way, but I can’t think how else to give you any peace.’

  ‘THINK WHAT YOU’RE DOING!’ roared the Swimmer, and took one fluid step out of the bathtub, and then another.

  Jim sloshed gasoline all over her. She lifted her hands to protect her face, and staggered for a moment as if she couldn’t see. But the gas immediately ran off her watery skin like scores of rainbow-colored snakes, and puddled on the floor.

  He threw more gasoline over her, and this time he took his Zippo lighter out of his shirt pocket and flicked it into flame.

  The Swimmer lowered her hands and stared at him. He had been frightened more than once, especially when he had seen spirits and ghosts and supernatural manifestations that he couldn’t even begin to describe. But the expression on the Swimmer’s face was the expression of death itself. He had never seen anybody who looked so utterly determined to kill him.

  The Swimmer took one step toward him and he threw the lighter at her. It fell right through her and clattered on to the floor.

  For a fraction of a second, he thought that nothing was going to happen. But then there was a deep, subdued whooommmphhh! and a huge ball of orange fire rolled up off the floor and engulfed the Swimmer in flames. The heat was enormous, and Jim had to shield his face with his hand and step back toward the door.

  Michael looked around the doorway and said excitedly, ‘You did it, Mr Rook! You did it!’

  The Swimmer was standing in the center of the bathroom, both arms raised, while the fire roared all around her with a soft, fierce, funneling sound. Steam began to pour out of her, adding a high, intense hiss. She was evaporating … and Jane’s spirit was evaporating with her.

  Susan appeared in the doorway too. She watched in silence, with orange flames reflected in her eyes. The Swimmer didn’t scream or cry or try to escape. She just stood amidst the flames with steam gushing from her shoulders and the top of her head.

  Beneath her feet, the bathroom tiles began to crack with the heat, and there was a sudden snap as the mirror broke. But then there was another crack, and another. Pieces of plaster dropped from the ceiling – tiny fragments at first, but then a large triangular lump, and then another.

  ‘What the hell’s happening?’ asked Michael. ‘That’s not just the heat, that’s—’

  This time – with a deafening crash – an immense section of plaster dropped on to the floor, followed by a thumping, tumbling, banging cascade of joists, floorboards and crossbeams.

  ‘The whole building is falling down!’ screamed Mervyn. ‘I told you this was too dangerous! I told you!’

  ‘Michael – get me one of those fire extinguishers,’ said Jim.

  ‘You’re not going to put her out yet?’ said Susan. ‘Look at her – she still has her physical
shape. If you put her out now Jane’s spirit will be able to escape!’

  Another section of timber fell on to the bathroom floor. It bounced off the side of the tub and almost hit the Swimmer’s legs. Immediately it caught alight, and started to burn almost as fiercely as the Swimmer herself. The whole bathroom was filled with steam and black oily smoke and plaster dust.

  ‘She’s diminishing,’ said Susan. ‘Look at her now – she’s going down on her knees. We’ve done it, Jim. We’ve beaten her.’

  But then – from directly above them – they heard an extraordinary splitting, ringing noise. It sounded like an immense church bell cracking. Jim looked at Susan with a frown, but all Susan could do was shake her head.

  It was only when hundreds of gallons of water abruptly dropped into the bathroom that they realized what had happened. It crashed on to the Swimmer and instantly extinguished her flames. It surged across the floor, almost waist-deep, and forced Jim and Susan and Michael to stagger back into the living-room. There, it flowed quickly and relentlessly across the carpet.

  ‘Goddam water tank burst!’

  ‘How could it burst, just like that?’

  ‘It’s water, isn’t it? It’s a thinking, evolving, spiritual element! It was protecting its own!’

  The bathroom door opened and the Swimmer appeared, as glassy and as perfect as she had been before. She glided across the living-room and out through the open front door, her feet splashing in the inch-deep water that had spread across most of Jim’s apartment. She walked out of the open front door and along the corridor. There was no point in trying to stop her. As she walked, she gradually drifted apart, like a passing rainshower, and by the time she reached the head of the stairs there was nothing to show that she had been there except for a trail of wet footprints. Nothing except Jane Tüllett’s spirit, which only Jim could see.

  She stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, staring back at him.

  ‘Now I know how you really feel about me,’ she said. ‘You’re not interested in finding me peace. You’re only interested in killing my spirit, just like you killed my body.’