Death by Water

by Alessandro Manzetti

  Valerie stood there for several long moments, heart pounding in her ears. She held her breath as if she feared exhaling might cause whatever force was holding back all that water to pop out of existence as if it were no more substantial than a bubble. An image came to her then, tons of water rushing into the underpass to engulf the biker, the SUV mom and her bratty kids, and her. So vivid was this image that for an instant she thought it was real and started to scream, but then she managed to get herself back under some approximation of control and banished the image from her mind.

  The shape on the other side of the barrier lifted its arm and stretched its hand toward her. Fingers emerged from the water, just the tips at first, but they were soon followed by the entire hand then wrist, forearm, elbow…The fingers and arm were delicate, feminine, but the skin was ivory white and mottled with patches of gray-green.

  On some level of her being, deeper than mind, perhaps deeper than spirit, Valerie recognized that hand. She raised her own, fingers trembling, and reached toward it, tears sliding across her cheeks.

  “Marie?” she whispered.

  At the last instant she almost jerked her hand back, almost turned and fled, heeding the warning she’d ignored before. But it was too late. The discolored hand grabbed hold of her wrist and with surprising strength pulled her into the water.

  “You are such a bitch, you know that?”

  Marie sat slumped in the passenger seat, looking out the window, face turned away from Valerie. Anger radiated from Marie in what felt like solid waves of force, and Valerie wanted to snap back at her sister, call her an irresponsible little shit, but she held her tongue. As satisfying as it would be to lash out, it would only make things worse.

  Valerie was nineteen, Marie fourteen-almost-fifteen. Both were soaking wet, hair plastered to their heads, clothes clinging to their bodies like thick burlap. It was night and a storm raged around them—bright lightning, ear-splitting thunder, pounding rain, gusting winds. Valerie had the wipers on their highest setting, their rapid thwok-thwok-thwok echoing the angry throbbing of her pulse. She was furious with Marie, and she thought it only appropriate that they were driving through a storm like this. Its fury mirrored her own. She’d never driven in conditions this bad before, and she had to fight to keep her Honda Accord under control. The wind was so strong each blast was like the punch of a giant fist that threatened to knock them off the road. Valerie loved the rain, always had. She especially loved listening to it hit the roof over her bedroom when she drifted off to sleep. But this storm was too much even for her.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” Valerie had to shout to be heard over the storm. “But you weren’t thinking, were you? At least not with your head.”

  Marie didn’t answer, didn’t turn away from the window to face her.

  They were traveling on 25A, a two-lane country road that connected their town of Ash Creek with Waldron. Valerie knew she was probably going too fast for this weather—almost fifty—but she told herself that it was okay. There was hardly ever any traffic on 25A this time of night, and there was nothing but cornfields on either side of them. If she did run the Accord off the road, the worst that would happen was they’d end up knocking down a dozen cornstalks and get stuck in mud. She’d have to call AAA to tow them out of the field, which would be embarrassing, but so what? Right now, she was too pissed to give a damn what happened.

  An hour earlier, Valerie had gotten a call from Libby, one of Marie’s friends, informing her that Marie had snuck out of their parents’ house to go to a party in Waldron. A party thrown by some guys in their twenties that Marie and Libby had met at the mall last weekend. One of the guys—David—had made it a point of not only inviting Marie, but offering her a ride. According to Libby, David was hot and he drove a tricked-out Camaro. So Marie—who’d been flattered and flustered in equal measure—accepted his invitation. Marie had tried to talk Libby into going too, but she declined. She’d thought David and his friends were kind of sketchy, and she knew there would be drugs and alcohol there—maybe a lot—and she hadn’t liked the look in David’s eyes when he talked to Marie. A “Big Bad Wolf” look, she’d called it. Marie had kept after her all week to go and had given her the address of the house where the party was going to be in case she changed her mind. Libby had tried to talk Marie out of going, but she wouldn’t listen. Finally, on the night of the party, not knowing what else to do and not wishing to get Marie in trouble with her parents, she’d called Valerie.

  Valerie was finishing her first year of college at the University of Cincinnati, and when Libby told her what Marie was up to, Valerie rushed out of her dorm, got in her car, and raced off. Waldron was less than an hour away from Cincy, and during the drive, Valerie tried not to imagine what Marie might be doing—or might be having done to her—at the party. The rain started before she was halfway to Waldron, but it hadn’t been too bad then. The storm didn’t begin to worsen until after she’d found the house David and his friends rented and dragged her sister to the car. David hadn’t seemed all that upset at having his underage date taken away so abruptly. Instead, he smiled at Valerie and asked for her phone number. Valerie told him to go fuck himself and all he did was laugh.

  Now here they were, driving through a hellacious thunderstorm on the way to Mom and Dad’s, Valerie warring with two equally strong impulses: to strangle her sister for being so reckless or hug her and ask if she was okay. But since her hands clenched the steering wheel in a death grip, she had to settle for using her voice.

  “You didn’t know those people. They could’ve done anything to you.”

  Marie shrugged, almost imperceptibly. Valerie chose to take it as an encouraging sign.

  “They’re way too old for you.” She almost added, You’re only fourteen, but she knew that pointing out her sister’s youth would only make her angrier.

  No shrug this time, but Marie didn’t call her a bitch again. Progress?

  So far, Marie hadn’t asked her how she’d known about the party or its location. Maybe she’d already guessed it was Libby’s doing. Or maybe she was so mad right then she didn’t give a shit.

  “I thought it would be fun.”

  Marie said this so softly that Valerie almost couldn’t hear her over the storm.

  “An older guy pays you attention and you’re ready to spread your legs for him without a second thought,” Valerie snapped.

  That got Marie’s attention. She whipped her head around, eyes filled with equal amounts of anger and shame.

  “Fuck you!” she shouted. “You think you’re so high and mighty since you went off to college. You’re probably drunk most of the time and screw a different guy every weekend!”

  A blast of wind buffeted the Accord, causing it to veer into the other lane. Valerie yanked the steering wheel to get the car back where it belonged.

  “I’m nineteen,” Valerie said. She almost added, I’m an adult, but despite her age, she really didn’t feel like one yet.

  “David was all right,” Marie said. “So were his friends.” She sounded sulky now more than angry. “You really embarrassed me tonight.”

  “Would you rather Mom and Dad had come to get you?”

  Marie didn’t reply.

  One of the things that bothered Valerie the most about all this was that her sister hadn’t said anything to her about David and the party before tonight. There had been a time when the two of them had shared every thought, every secret wish and hidden fear. But it seemed that time was gone, and it deeply saddened Valerie.

  There was so much Valerie wanted to tell her sister. That she should be more careful, that she should value herself more, that there would be time for parties and older boys later, when she was older herself and could make choices in a more clear-eyed, level-headed way. But instead of saying any of this, she laughed.

  Marie scowled, as if she suspected Valerie was laughing at her. Valerie was about to tell her it was nothing, that she had just realized she was acting too much like
Mom tonight, and that she was sorry for being bitchy. But before she could speak again, an especially strong blast of wind hit the Accord and caused it to swerve. Valerie tried to correct, but she overcompensated, the tires hydroplaned, and there was nothing she could do to prevent the car sliding off the road. The Accord tilted to the right, and its passenger side wheels slipped into the ditch. The car followed the ditch’s curve, launched into the air, flipped halfway over, and crashed to the ground. The vehicle slid through mud, flattening cornstalks just as Valerie had imagined earlier before coming to a stop.

  Valerie wasn’t sure if she lost consciousness or if she was simply stunned by the suddenness of what had happened, but the next thing she was fully aware of was hanging upside-down in the driver’s seat, held in place by her seatbelt. The airbag had deployed, but it was already half-deflated, its work finished. Her head throbbed, but she didn’t feel any other pain, so she assumed she was mostly unhurt. That, or the pain from her injuries hadn’t hit her yet.

  She looked toward her sister, the motion of turning her head sending a lance of pain through her neck. Marie’s seatbelt was still on, but the passenger side window was shattered, and Marie’s eyes were closed. There was blood on the right side of her face, and Valerie knew she’d hit the window. She feared her sister was dead, but then Marie moaned and stirred slightly. She was hurt, but she was alive.

  The Accord had landed on its roof, but it wasn’t lying flat. The passenger side of the vehicle was lower than the driver’s side, and Marie’s face practically lay in mud and water. The storm continued raging around them, and as Valerie watched in horror, water pooled around Marie’s face, its level rising rapidly. She tried to reach out, grab hold of Marie’s arm and pull her away from the water, but the front end of the Accord had been smashed in when it landed, and the steering wheel was pressed against her, pinning her right arm to her body. She tried to pull free, but it was no use. She was trapped.

  She yelled Marie’s name, but she didn’t respond. Valerie could only watch as muddy water rose over Marie’s nose and mouth. Tiny bubbles of air dotted the surface of the water for several moments, but then they stopped. The water continued rising until most of Marie’s head was covered, and Valerie hoped the flooding would continue, the water level rising until the storm claimed her life as well. After all, she had been the one to drag her sister away from the party, she had been driving far too fast given how fierce the storm was, she had insisted on trying to talk things out instead of focusing all of her attention on driving. If either of them deserved to die drowning in a farmer’s cornfield, it was her.

  But although the rain continued, the water didn’t rise much higher, and it never came close to touching Valerie. The storm continued for another hour before the thunder grew distant and lightning flashes came less often. Eventually, the rain slackened and died away. The storm had done a great deal of damage across several counties, and police and emergency crews were so busy dealing with the aftermath that Valerie and Marie weren’t found until well after sunrise. Valerie hung upside down the entire time, awake, with only her sister’s dead body for company.

  Valerie tried to draw in breath to scream, but all she managed to do was suck water into her lungs. A froth of bubbles burst from her mouth as she attempted to expel the water, and then she inhaled again out of reflex, taking in even more. Absolute animal panic took hold of her, and her body began thrashing, searching for something solid to grab on to. But there was nothing. She didn’t question what was happening to her, didn’t try to deny its reality. She had quite literally been pulled into her worst nightmare, and all she wanted was out. The underpass—and more importantly, air—was only inches away. If she could pull free of the hand (Marie’s hand) that gripped her wrist and dragged her forward, she could turn around and swim back to the underpass. She hadn’t gone near a pool since the accident, but she’d been a strong enough swimmer as a kid, and she felt confident she could find her way—if she could get free.

  The water was murky, and she couldn’t make out the features of the thing (Marie) that held on to her. She could feel it, though, and she grabbed hold of the thing’s (Marie’s) hand with both of hers and clawed at it, trying to tear herself from its (her) grip. She felt too-soft flesh slough away beneath her fingernails. Felt them scrape against the bones underneath. At first, the hand’s (her) grip didn’t lessen, but then the fingers pulled away, and she saw the shadowy form of the thing (her sister) rise upward and vanish into the gloom.

  Lungs heavy and burning for air, she spun around in the water and kicked her legs to propel herself forward. She stretched out a hand, reaching for the underpass, for air, for fucking sanity, but there was only water.

  But then her fingers brushed against something solid, and she allowed herself an instant of hope. Maybe it was a concrete pillar or a vehicle of some sort. Maybe the biker or the SUV mom had witnessed what had happened to her and had plunged their hands into the water, searching for her. But what she felt was slick and slimy, and it had an odd texture like…fur, she realized. Wet fur.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the water’s darkness somewhat, and she could discern the basic shape of the thing in front of her. It was an animal of some kind: small body, thin legs, slender neck, with a pair of backward curving horns growing from the top of its head. It was an…antelope? At least, that’s what she thought it was. The animal had been in the water a long time, and chunks of its flesh had fallen off the bone—or perhaps been bitten off by predators of some kind.

  She recoiled in horror, another burst of bubbles leaving her mouth, more water going in. She pushed herself away from the grisly thing, hands waving water in front of her, feet kicking. Her back thumped into something else, and she whirled around and found herself confronted with another dead animal. This one was larger than the antelope, with a round body, trunk-like legs, and leathery skin. It took her a second to identify it because the head had been reduced to little more than a skull with a few shreds of flesh clinging to it. An elephant, she thought. A baby one, just like in the picture of the Flood in her Bible.

  She tried swimming away from it as well, only to bump into another body, this one a sheep, she thought, although it was so far gone it was difficult to tell. And then she was surrounded by dozens of half-rotting, half-devoured corpses of animals. Some exotic and wild—lions, hyenas, giraffes, rhinos, tigers, wolves, and bears. Others more mundane and benign—horses, dogs, cattle, raccoons, and foxes. They pressed in on her from all sides, a terrible menagerie of death and decay, and she thought of the question she’d asked Grandma when she was a little girl.

  What about all the other animals? The ones not on the ark? Were they wicked, too?

  Her limbs felt heavy as iron and pinpoints of light sparked in her vision. She knew she couldn’t last much longer, that her body’s oxygen supply was almost spent. She would die here, wherever here was, would become one more corpse in a sea of death.

  I’m sorry, Marie, she thought, her mind sluggish and barely able to focus. So…very…sorry.

  She closed her eyes and waited for the end. But before it could come, something heavy struck her shoulder. Her eyes flew open and she found herself peering at what looked like a rock the size of her head, rope tied around it, the other end stretching upward into the darkness. Without hesitation, she grabbed hold of the rock with both hands and gave a tug. The rope immediately began to ascend, taking her with it.

  She rose rapidly, bumping against the carcasses of dead animals as she went. The last vestiges of her consciousness began to fade, and she thought she might die before she reached the surface—assuming there was a surface, that she wasn’t trapped in an endless universe of water. But then her head broke through into air, and she drew in a heaving gasp. She immediately began coughing up water, her body expelling it from both lungs and stomach. So violent were her spasms that she lost her grip on the rope. Panicking, she flailed about and her hands struck something hard and solid. Not the rock. This was flat, smooth, and much
larger. Her eyes were filled with tears from coughing so much, and it took a moment for her vision to clear, but when it did, she saw she was touching wood. A wall of wood, one so vast she could not see where it ended. The wood was worn and weathered, as if it had been exposed to the elements for a very long time. As she struggled to understand the structure that confronted her, something came falling down from above. At first she thought it was going to hit her, but instead it landed against the wall several feet away. It was a rope ladder, or at least a grisly variation of the concept. This one had been fashioned from lengths of bone and interwoven strips of dried muscle and ligament. She didn’t want to touch the disgusting thing, but there was no sign of the other rope, the one with the rock on the end, and she didn’t want to remain in the water anymore, not with the legion of dead animals drifting in its currents. She swam over to the ladder, took hold of the meat ropes, set a foot on a bone rung, and began to climb.

  The going wasn’t easy. Her body was weary from everything she’d been through, and her muscles trembled with fatigue. But she forced herself to continue, one rung after another. The water below was a glossy black, dark clouds filled the sky, and the light held a strange purplish cast. A steady wind blew against her wet body, its cold bite causing her to shiver. At least it’s not raining here, she thought. She felt the wooden structure rise and fall, the ladder swaying with the rhythm. No, not a wall. A hull. This was a ship, a gigantic one, big as an ocean liner, maybe bigger. She had a horrible suspicion what it was, but she didn’t want to deal with that then, so she pushed the thought away and continued her ascent.