Stone Groove

by Erik Carter

He turned to face the water.

  Two seconds.

  He leaned toward the edge of the boat to toss the bomb over, but before he got a chance, it slipped from his hands.

  As it dropped through the air, it rotated a quarter turn, and for a moment the clock looked him right in the face. The hand was one tick away from zero.

  The bomb fell on the edge of the boat, and by the way it held this position, it seemed like it wanted to remain there. But then it shifted.

  It slid off the side of the boat, and with a small splash it entered the river.

  The boat lifted, and there was a tremendous crack as it tore in half at the middle. It rose ten feet off the sound. A funnel of white water shot out in front of him, and Dale felt himself being pulled to one side of the crest. He and Susan were tossed to the back of the boat, and for just a moment he saw his mother in the other half clamoring to maintain her balance without the use of her hands. Then she disappeared behind a geyser of froth.

  Dale felt an impact, and his body was upturned. Everything was black. And filled with a ringing silence. There was nothing before him, nothing behind him. He was engulfed in water. He was in the sound.

  He held his arms out to the side and remained perfectly still. Nature would do its thing and pull him toward the surface. If he could just keep his composure, he would find the surface.

  He drifted upwards, and with that he thrust his hands above him and pulled with what little was left in him. He broke the surface and sucked in a big helping of air.

  Something touched his face. A board. The remnants of the boat were around him. Susan and Mom? Where were they?

  The flotsam was piled thick around him, clanking against itself in the now choppy water. He grabbed onto a board and cupped his hand over his eyes. Something round was to his right, something that could be a person. It was Susan’s brown hair plastered to her head. She was heaved over, her bound arms draped over a large piece of wood.

  Dale let go of his board and swam over to her. She didn’t move.

  “Susan! Susan!”

  As he got closer to her, he heard a noise. A low, constant noise. Moaning. Her back was moving up and down. Breathing. She was alive.

  He touched her shoulder, and her head moved. “Susan?”

  “I’m … fine.”

  He could barely hear her. “Not sure that I agree with that prognosis, Doctor.”

  He’d found one of them. Now he had to find his mother. He looked about for anything that would resemble the sweatshirt she was wearing—blue with a dolphin painted on it. There was nothing. Only debris.

  But then he saw something, something coming to the surface. It was blue, darker than her sweatshirt had been, as dark as it would be if it were sopping wet. Something white next to it. Her hair.

  His mother broke the surface of the water and floated face up.

  Dale didn’t scream, he didn’t panic. His training set in, and he pulled his body through the water with big breaststrokes, crashing through the debris like a drill through a piece of wood.

  His mother’s skin was pale, and the water lapped against her cheeks. In a flash, one of those moments where a million thoughts are processed at once, Dale visualized his entire future. A future that was without the only person in the world that he loved. The only person who knew who he was.

  She was floating next to a large chunk of the boat’s hull, eight feet across. He put an arm under her small frame and pushed her onto the piece of the boat before climbing on and straddling her. He initiated CPR. Her sopping sweatshirt sloshed beneath his hands.

  Then he felt something. She was breathing. Just barely, but she was breathing. He could feel her heartbeat. She was out of it, that was for sure, but she wasn’t dead. So he did the first thing that came to mind.

  He slapped her.

  She awoke with a jolt, and her eyes darted from right to left before centering on Dale. Her face registered confusion for just a moment. Then she scowled.

  “That’s a hell of a thing to do your mother.”

  Dale smiled. “I love you too.”

  “Well, untie me.”

  Dale shook his head. Nothing could break Audrey Walker’s spirit.

  His pocketknife was still in his pocket, and he breathed a sigh of relief. It would’ve been heartbreaking to lose it. He sawed through his mother’s binds. She frowned at the ropes, as mad at them as she was at the person who tied them to her.

  “Mom, don’t move.”

  “I’m not goin’ anywhere,” she said, rubbing her wrists.

  Dale quickly swam back to Susan. She was still on the board where he left her. Her eyes were opened in pained slits.

  “Susan?”

  “Yes?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  “Can you move?”

  “No.”

  “I need your help. For just a second. I need you to climb onto my back so I can take you over to that big chunk of the boat. Can you do that for me?”

  Susan groaned.

  “Come on,” he said. He left her hands tied together. Since she wouldn’t have the strength to hang onto him, he could use her connected arms as a loop around his neck. After he turned his back to her, he put her left hand on his shoulder. “Now put your arms around my neck.”

  He lowered his face to the water. He could feel her slowly trying to raise her arms over his head. But she slipped.

  And sank.

  Her half-open eyes disappeared beneath the surface, not even registering the peril of her situation.

  Dale spun around and dropped beneath the water. It was dark, terribly dark, but he could just make out Susan’s form as she sank further into the nothingness. He swam toward her furiously as she fell. Just as she was disappearing completely into the inky depths, he grabbed the ropes around her wrists, and, as he did, their combined, sinking weight began to pull him down too.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. He hacked furiously at the ropes.

  And then Susan’s eyes caught his. Her eyes were wide open now. There was just a little bit of light from above, and as her face disappeared, Dale saw something in her expression. A calm buried somewhere beneath her panic. As though she was ready to die.

  Dale wasn’t going to let that happen, though. The moonlight disappeared around them. Total darkness. He gave the ropes around Susan’s wrists two more strong hacks with the knife and felt them fall from her hands.

  Dale wrapped his arm around Susan’s midsection and kicked hard. Her face slumped down to her chest, creating more drag as he tried to get her up.

  The moon peeked through the water above and taunted him. Every time he thought he was getting closer to the surface, he found that he had farther yet to go. The air in his lungs grew stale, and his chest got tight. But just when he thought they wouldn’t make it, they burst through the top, catching Dale by surprise.

  Susan was right side up and still breathing. He awkwardly paddled himself beneath her and got her onto his back. Her arms dangled over his shoulders like ice-laden branches hanging heavily off a tree. He had her face propped up against the back of his neck, and he did his damnedest to keep the water from lapping into her mouth. Her breath blew against his neck slowly, warm against the cold that surrounded him.

  When he got back to his mother and the chunk of remaining boat, he pulled around and hooked his hands under Susan’s arms. He guided her into the small hull. She slouched down against the remains of one of the boat’s seats and opened her eyes. His mother immediately took to her, wiping the hair from her face and propping her up.

  “Mom, this is Susan,” Dale said. “I believe you’ve met. I need you to take care of her for me.”

  “And where do you think you’re going?”

  Dale scanned the water for Spencer’s boat, just a small dot in the distance. “To see an old friend.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Go get him, Brad.” Her lips raised into something resembling a smile, and her eyes, for once, registered encouragement. She’d
called him “Brad.” But he would let it pass.

  The boat that he had taken out there, the boat that Spencer had given him, was several hundred feet away. Thanks to his poor nautical skills, it had kept going for quite a ways after he clipped the corner of the women’s boat. As he swam out to it, he looked to the east and found Spencer again.

  He pulled himself into the boat, which felt foreign and strangely solid after the mess of the other boat. He took a deep breath. The rickety engine was still idling. He slammed the throttle down, barreling toward Spencer.

  Chapter 62

  Spencer was stranded in the middle of the river, and he was out of range to set off the explosion at The Lost Colony play. He looked at the detonator. Its green plastic light was dark, mocking him. How could this be? He thought for sure he was within range. He had tested it earlier, and he had only needed to get a mile north of the factory.

  And yet here he was. With an unlit green light on the transmitter. Sitting helpless in the middle of the water. His plan had crumbled before his eyes. He hadn’t gotten the money, and the lie of Virginia Dare’s death would continue to be perpetuated. He had failed.

  But for all that, he was so happy he could’ve yelled out to the heavens above. Brad Walker was dead.

  The sound of the explosion had carried over the water, and he saw the bright flare for an instant before it disappeared, like a puff of flame from a fire breather’s mouth.

  He had killed the man and, before he died, wrenched his heart from his body. Spencer could taste Brad’s agony, his sick dread at the moment he realized that he wouldn’t be able to save his mother and his latest lady friend. Brad had known that he was once more responsible for destroying people’s lives, right at the moment when he lost his own.

  Spencer looked at the speedboat’s motor again. It lay there dead, laughing. Brad Walker had given him a good parting shot, but Spencer would find another way to complete his plans. That was how he had gotten this far. Adaptability. It would be a long swim, but Spencer would be able to make it back to the shore. That was the least of his worries. Now he just had to come up with an alternate plan to duck the feds and get out of the country.

  He took one more look to the distance where Brad had been blown out of this world. A smile formed on his lips as he thought again of the brilliance with which his plan of destroying Brad had come to fruition. As he looked at the boat, he saw something move. Spencer cursed himself for not bringing binoculars. He had been so prepared during this entire operation that he could forgive his oversight, but it certainly would be helpful to see now.

  Whatever he had seen was in motion. It was large. And it was leaving the fishing boat’s wreckage. Getting bigger. It was coming toward him. The boat. It was the rickety fishing boat that Spencer had given to Brad. It was headed his direction.

  And as it got closer, he could just make out Brad Walker behind the wheel.

  Spencer screamed out in pure, guttural rage, a sound something like that which he’d hoped would be Brad Walker’s death throes. He screamed so loud that when he finished, his throat was raw. His heart thumped against his ribs, and for a moment he didn’t know what he was going to do.

  But then he went to the front of the boat and reached under the driver seat. He may not have been prepared enough to bring a pair of binoculars, but he’d had the foresight to remember firepower.

  It was one of the old Soviet AK-47s from the Collective Agricultural Experiment. He swung it around to the back of the boat and fired. This weapon wasn’t a quality item in the same way that the speedboat was. It wasn’t sleek, it wasn’t textural. It didn’t make you feel a certain way about yourself. But the AK-47 had it where it counted. The banana-shaped magazine. The reliability of decades of use.

  The gun spat bullets out toward the approaching boat in the clackety manner of the Eastern European mainstay. He shot from the hip and wheeled it left and right, over and over, wide arcs that would lay out a fan of deadly metal. One of those bullets would strike Brad Walker. Then he would finally be done with this mess.

  Chapter 63

  Dale held on to the side of the boat. He had the throttle pushed all the way down, and he was keeping it in line with Spencer’s speedboat, a small white shape that was getting larger and larger.

  There was a noise in the distance, a snapping sound. Something plopped in the water next to him. The sound continued, louder now. It was a cracking noise, a steady flow, like a rippling electric current.

  Gunfire. Automatic gunfire. Spencer was packing heat, and he was shooting at him.

  Dale was closer to the speedboat now. He was close enough to see Spencer standing up in the hull. Bullets screeched by, and Dale lowered himself into the boat and blindly guided it forward.

  A bullet smashed through the windshield. He flinched to avoid the shards of glass that sprayed down upon him.

  He glanced up. Spencer’s boat was rapidly drawing closer. There was a twisted, wide-mouthed jeer on Spencer’s face, lit up by the fiery muzzle flash shooting from the barrel of his AK-47.

  Dale’s boat was right on course for a direct collision with Spencer’s. Just as he intended. This was a kamikaze mission. There was a good chance that neither he nor Spencer would make it out of this alive. That was an acceptable risk. Somehow this lunatic had to be stopped.

  Bullets hissed above him and to the sides. He was barreling right into an angry swarm of bees. One of them struck the side of the boat, and a large chunk of wood tumbled toward him, smacking into the seat beside him. Dale tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

  Any moment now.

  Please, oh please, let this turn out okay.

  There was a sound and a jolt, so quick that he hardly registered it. Then Dale was weightless, gliding through the air with his back arched. His hold on the steering wheel weakened, and his fingers drifted away from it. Both he and the boat rose through the air, and there was a grinding noise beneath him.

  The dash and shattered windshield floated away as he moved toward the back of the boat. His legs kicked aimlessly. His arms flailed. And his perspective of the boat changed. He was twisting around in the air. Or maybe the boat was. The boat turned to his right, and as he moved to the aft, the boat corkscrewed above him. The outboard hovered just over his hair, which was standing out in all directions, and for a moment he thought he’d be eaten by the propeller.

  Smash. Something hit him in the side hard. A board, a piece of metal. He was under water once again. Surrounded by debris once again. Using what energy that hadn’t been wrenched from him, he spun himself around so that when he floated up his lips would find air.

  He drifted upwards. A chunk of wood brushed his face. And then there was air. He breathed. Chunks of destroyed boat surrounded him once more. He reached out weakly and grabbed at them with his arms and legs. His ears were still underwater, and the noises around him had a dull, muted quality. Water lapped on his cheeks. The undulations of the water shook him gently, peacefully.

  There was peace. He could sleep here. If this was all there was left, he could handle that.

  But then he remembered. It wasn’t over yet. Spencer.

  Groaning, he used the board in his right hand and pulled himself around so that he was floating upward in the water. His eyes slowly opened, as though from a long, deep sleep. It was dark. He could just make out the remains of the two boats.

  He felt something on his right side and touched it with his left hand. A jolt of pain shot through him, making his whole body jump. He could feel with his hand a gash on the skin over his ribs, about four inches long. Warm, slippery blood covered his fingers.

  Unlike his last experience with boat debris, the damage to these two boats had not been nearly as catastrophic. To his left was the speedboat. It was still right-side up with a gigantic, jagged hole in the starboard side. Farther away and to his right was the old boat he had been in. It was capsized with its nose angled into the water, the motor dangling a good five feet in the air.

  The tw
o boats were accounted for, but Spencer wasn’t.

  Dale looked all around him, scanning the darkness for anything other than boards and nautical corpses. The waves rocked his head around, and the pieces of wood clanked into one another. Nothing resembled a person. Spencer must have still been in the speedboat.

  Dale slowly paddled himself over to the speedboat with what strength he had left, slapping at the water on either side of his board. The cut on his side bellowed at him. He inched forward, and as he did, he pictured Spencer popping out from the hole in the side of the boat, his AK-47 in hand, firing at him. There would be little Dale could do to avoid it.

  There was a crackling sound to his right, and Dale turned just in time to see the motor on his upturned boat explode. A flash of blinding light. Then a wave of heat. It smacked him across the face, rolling him onto his side. He righted himself, and when he did, he saw that Lady Luck had finally shined upon him in the form of a burning boat. He now had visibility.

  In the flickering, yellow-red light, he paddled a couple feet closer to the speedboat and craned his neck to the right to look into the hole. He couldn’t see Spencer, but—

  Something touched him on the side, and he looked down just in time to see Spencer’s hand. Dale swung his elbow, a surge of adrenaline belying his exhaustion.

  But he hit only water.

  Dale’s misplaced swing disoriented him, and he thrashed about. He’d lost hold of his board. He flailed wildly, trying to stay afloat, not knowing from what direction Spencer would be coming. But Dale never touched him.

  Then he saw why his first blow hadn’t connected. The hand that had touched him was no longer connected to Spencer. It floated upside down in the water, bloody tendrils drifting behind it where the wrist once was. It was already white and bloated, as though Death was eager to claim any part of Spencer Goad.

  And just like that, the whole case was done. Some investigations go out like a dimming light. Others go out with a literal bang. Spencer had been blown to bits.

  “Spencer …”