It was already too late.
Before he could stop it, he was catapulted out across the water. For an instant, he thought he was flying, his arms outstretched like Superman as he flew toward the distant shore and Lori.
But then the water rushed up like a geyser to meet him, and he plunged beneath the surface, his cry for help cut off as water filled his mouth. He hadn’t had time to take a last lungful of air, so it wasn’t long before his chest ached with dull, burning pain as he plummeted deeper into the river.
Blackness quickly enfolded him. When he looked up, he saw the surface shimmering like an air bubble high above him. He reached for it with clawed hands, but the weight of his clothes was pulling him down like he was caught in a terrible suction. The cold water numbed him, and when he screamed, his voice came out in a blast of bubbles that looked like steel ball bearings as they trailed to the surface above him.
I’m dying, he thought, surprised by the stark clarity of the thought.
The downward pull was irresistible, and after a moment of struggle, he resigned himself to the simple fact that he was going to drown. His jacket flared behind him like black wings that assisted him in his long, slow descent to the river bottom. His hands waved slowly in front of him, and he experienced a peculiar feeling of detachment, as though they belonged to someone else. His throat was on fire, and hot pressure filled his brain. Tiny yellow lights exploded around him like fireflies, dancing in the night. The sense of near weightlessness was almost exhilarating, even as he knew his death was near. He let out a low groan that never left his throat when his feet settled into the thick layer of silt that lined the river bottom. Still, even below the water, he thought he could hear Lori’s voice, calling to him, urging him to come to her.
Ben’s legs buckled like he’d been blackjacked on the back of the knees, and he pitched forward. His hands sank into silt up to his wrists, sending out squirts of black muck. His eyes were wide open, and even though he knew on some level that it was impossible, he noticed a pale blue translucence glowing around him, like light seen through frosted glass. As his eyes adjusted, he looked at the wavering webs of shadow and light that rippled across the riverbed.
“Come to me, Ben…I’m waiting for you…”
Lori’s voice filled his head, and as he stared straight ahead, he was sure he could see her translucently pale body drifting in the waterweeds in front of him. On hands and knees, he started crawling toward her, moving in lazy slow-motion.
I’m coming, he screamed inside his head, the single thought glowing like a flare in his mind.
When he reached out in front of himself and pressed his hand down, another mushroom cloud of black silt rose from between his fingers. The riverbed was uneven. Waterlogged branches raked against him like hands, trying to grab onto him and hold him back, but the memory of Lori’s voice drew him on. He stared straight ahead, watching as the ghostly figure wavered in and out of view, receding like smoke and then reforming into a woman’s face framed by inky swirls of long, black hair. Her eyes glowed with a deep, icy fire that drew him on. Slimy things brushed against his body, but he barely noticed.
Wait for me…I’m coming…
But the figure, indistinct in the swirls of mud and slime, kept pulling away from him. No matter how close he got, it always drew back while luring him forward across the slick, black river bottom. A terrible pressure squeezed Ben’s chest inward, and a small corner of his mind told him that he should be dead by now. There was no way, even with everything moving is such dreamy slow-motion, that he could hold his breath this long. The light from the surface shimmered above him as he crawled, casting wavering shadows around him like a smoky net. On either side, he caught glimpses of dark shapes that looked almost human as they rose up from the mud. Then, just as quickly, they melted back into the ooze, leaving behind the sizzling afterglow of what might have been eyes staring at him from depths he couldn’t begin to imagine.
A single thought filled his mind and pushed him onward. His clothes flapped lazily around him, shimmering and rippling like silk blowing in the wind. A string of bubbles, looking like tiny pearls, leaked from his nose and rose to the surface. He imagined they formed a ladder, and he thought to try to climb it back up to the air, but Lori’s voice drew him on.
“I want you to be with me, Ben…”
The impulse to take a deep breath was strong, but he knew that, if he did, it would be his last. Slime dripped from his hands like dark blood whenever he raised them and placed them back down in front of him as he crawled forward. Rocks and broken glass and rusted iron cut into him. The further he went, the more he could see of those horrible creatures. Some of them moved closer, brushing by him. A few times he was almost knocked off balance, but he pushed ahead until something encircled his waist and began to tighten like a thick loop of rope.
Kicking his feet and waving his hands wildly, Ben turned to see what it was. He’d been expecting to see an underwater root, and his panic almost blinded him when he saw two arms, thin and knotted with lumps of muscle, reaching up from the riverbed and embracing him. Below him, gazing up from the mud, was a distorted face with eyes that glowed like coals.
No! Ben’s mind cried out as he thrashed to free himself. He kicked hard enough to shake off one of his shoes. He watched it drift upward for a moment, then rock back and forth as it settled slowly to the river bottom. The arms holding him started squeezing steadily tighter, forcing the stale air out of his lungs in a burst of silvery bubbles. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the top of one of the hands and started prying the fingers loose. The resistance of the water made all of his movements slow and heavy. He watched in terrified fascination as the eerie light around him shifted from side to side, casting rippling lines of shadow across the riverbed.
I don’t want to die, he thought, but there was little sadness in the thought; only acceptance. All around him, dark shapes loomed, flat and dimensionless except for eyes that glared at him like flares that slowly extinguished in the water. More hands reached out and took hold of his arms and legs and abdomen. He fought back as best he could, but after a while, his struggles gradually lessened.
“I’m waiting for you, Ben…”
Lori’s voice whispered seductively inside his head, gently pulling him away from the surrender that threatened to overwhelm him. With a sudden burst of energy, he kicked himself free of the ever-tightening embrace. The effort sent him falling backwards. He windmilled his arms like he was about to pitch over a precipice.
Like slowly developing photographs, faces blossomed out of the darkness all around him. Mouths gaped open but spoke no words. Eyes glistened with lifeless emptiness, and talon-sharp fingers raked his flesh, shredding it with razor stings. Ben was whimpering deep inside his chest as he scrambled frantically across the black mud like a crayfish scuttling to safety. His hands slipped as though he were crawling on oil.
“I’m waiting for you, Ben…”
The skin on his hands and knees was shredded, but he felt no pain. A curious floating sensation swept over him. His feet started to drift upward as he kicked violently and waved his arms, propelling himself forward with awkward, frog-like strokes. The hazy illumination surrounding him flared brightly, and—even underwater—Ben could hear low voices and deep, rumbling laughter. He had no idea what—if anything—they were saying, but the anguish of the moaning sounds fueled his panic. The pressure of the water bearing down on him made his eyes bulge. The burning in his chest was like a barely contained explosion that he knew, within seconds, was going to rip him apart.
I’m waiting for you Ben…I’ve always been waiting for you.
The voice no longer sounded like Lori. It was Mary, and the note of deep sadness and terrible longing in it wrung his heart.
I’m coming, he wanted to cry out, but he clamped his lips tightly shut to keep from inhaling water. He knew he was going to die—
If I’m not dead already.
—but something forced him to cling to life. H
e glanced up at the surface of the river, glimmering like a sheet of mercury impossibly far above him.
I’m coming, darling…wait for me…
Whenever a clawed hand grabbed him, catching a foot or a leg or arm, he thrashed wildly until he was free of it. Exhaustion burned in the center of his chest. He could feel himself weakening fast, giving up all hope that he would ever make it to her…
to Lori…
or Mary…
or both of them because they were now one and the same.
He didn’t doubt that Mary was dead, and there was no way she could be calling to him…not unless he was dead, too. But her voice or the memory of it warbled sweetly in his mind, sliding up and down several registers as it lured him onward. Water bubbled and foamed around him like it was boiling. The faces that leered out at him were distorted, like melting wax figures. Their mouths distended in agony, and their eyes bulged as they slid slowly down their cheeks before fading back into the blackness.
The thought that his strength would fail before he got to her filled him as pinpricks of sizzling white light weaved erratic patterns all around him and exploded in front of his face. When fingers as thick and unyielding as underwater roots wrapped around his throat, Ben no longer had the strength to resist. He finally surrendered. Sinking below the pain and fear, he had no choice but to let himself go. Numbing cold waves washed over him as the blood rushing through his brain slowed and then stopped. He had a vague sense that he was still moving, but he had lost all sense of direction and wasn’t sure if he was drifting up to the surface or settling down into the cold, silent mud.
It no longer mattered.
He accepted that. Even though he could no longer hear her voice, even if he didn’t know if it was his wife or Lori calling to him, it would all be over before long, and he would—finally—be at peace. He experienced a feeling of weightlessness as he slid down into a black, bottomless pit…but then suddenly he realized that he was moving up. His face burst through the surface of the water, and fresh air tore into his throat as he took a deep, gasping breath and then exhaled, sputtering and coughing so hard he almost puked.
Strong arms were holding him, lifting him up as if he weighed next to nothing. Suspended above the ground, his knees and hands scraped across the sharp edges of rocks and gravel as he floated up the sloping riverbank to the pathway. He had no idea how much of this was because he was moving under his own power or someone was carrying him. He tried to look around, but the ground and river and sky all melted into a wild, kaleidoscopic whirl. Again, he could almost imagine that he was flying. The chilled night air cut into him like saw blades. When he took another breath, he smelled something so noxious with rot his stomach roiled. Twisting to one side, he was dimly aware that he was vomiting as his stomach convulsed. Terrible tasting black water and bile spewed from his mouth in a propulsive wash.
“Easy there,” a voice that he didn’t recognize said even as strong hands patted his shoulders, slapping him on the back and forcing another, smaller gulp of water from him. “Looks like you took on a bit of water there.”
Ben was lost in a haze of panic that made his vision vibrate as though bolts of lightning were exploding all around him. He truly didn’t know or care if he was alive or dead as he rolled over onto his back and looked up at the sky. Like the surface of the water seen from below, the sky, too, looked like a shimmering bubble of mercury. He barely noticed the tufts of witch grass and dead weeds that stuck up from between the rocks and towered above him. Leaning close to his face was a dark, dimensionless silhouette. Ben strained to see the face, but he could see nothing there, not even the eyes.
It’s one of those things!
He raised his arm to shield his face as he pushed back with both feet, trying to get away. He could imagine the dead eyes glaring at him and the cold touch of the creature’s hands. He tried to cry out, but his throat was sealed off. With a surge of energy he knew was his last, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and stood up. His knees buckled beneath him as he struggled to maintain his balance.
“I’m not one of you!” he cried out, waving his arms wildly in front of himself but feeling no contact when he swung at the black silhouette.
“I’ll never be one of you!”
A sudden blast of wind howled in his ears, pushing at him from behind and propelling him toward the pathway. The night smeared out of focus as it spun around him like an out of control carousel. He cringed when he heard the sound of dragging footsteps behind him. Then, for just an instant, his vision cleared, and he saw in the distance the street and his apartment building. The streetlight cast a rich, yellow glow over the front yard, illuminating a mounded pile of dead leaves by the side of the road. As he watched in mute fascination, the pile began to shift and swirl as though lifted by a sudden whirlwind. The leaves rose from the ditch with a dry chattering that sounded like the clicking of a nest of insects.
“You won’t get me!” Ben wailed. “I won’t become one of you!”
He thrashed both arms wildly from side to side like he was clearing away strands of cobwebs. The pile of leaves was growing steadily in volume. Backlit by the streetlight, it cast a long, wavering shadow. Dark arms reached out toward Ben, the fingers clenching and unclenching like snapping claws. With each passing second, the head became more clearly defined, and Ben saw a pair of red eyes staring at him, looking like coals about to burst into flame. The wind rose steadily around him, masking the voice that was calling out his name. It wasn’t Lori or Mary. It was a deep-throated voice—a man’s. Ben trembled, fearing it was the voice of Death.
They want me to become one of them.
The thought sent a rush of panic through him so hard he staggered and almost dropped to the ground.
I crawled out of the river just like they do… maybe I’m one of them already!
The wind shrilled in his ears, and below the sound, he heard something else…voices, men and women and children, all of them crying out, shrieking in agony and calling his name. Ben knew that they were all lost souls, and if he listened to them, if he surrendered to the darkness now, he would join them.
“I won’t do it! I won’t give in!”
Even though he shouted so loud his throat felt like it was on fire, he couldn’t hear himself above the tearing rush of the wind and the steadily rising chorus of voices.
Looking back at the river, he saw it glistening in the night like a flood of white fire. Outlined against the dark curve of the water, there was a figure standing close beside him. It loomed in the darkness with one arm extended as though reaching for him. Even with the harsh glare of the streetlight shining directly on it, Ben couldn’t make out any of its features. It was like a hole the size and shape of a human being had suddenly opened up in the night, and the cold vacuum of space was sucking him into it.
“Leave me alone!” Ben shouted.
Clenching both hands into fists, he bent his knees like a fighter bracing for an attack. But the figure just stood there behind him. He sensed that it said something, but its voice was swept away by the howling wind and the grating rattle of dead leaves. Ben turned to face the human-shaped thing that was now moving swiftly down the street toward him. He watched, transfixed, as it moved steadily closer to him. He waved his hands above his head, screaming as loud as he could.
The windswept leaves engulfed him, sliced into him like razors. The deafening clatter and scraping sounds surrounded him. Thrashing wildly with his hands, he swatted at the leaves, grunting savagely as he tore into them. Just when he thought he wasn’t going to be able to stand another second of it, the wind suddenly died down. A sudden hush filled the night. A few leaves settled at his feet, and from somewhere deep in the night, he heard a long, agonized sigh that made him think of the sound a person might make when they take their last living breath.
Ben took a single step forward, wincing at the sound of dead leaves underfoot. He still sensed the dark figure behind him and started to turn slowly to confront it, but a w
ave of total exhaustion swept through him. His legs gave way, and he started to fall. It took much longer to hit the ground than he thought it should, but when he did, a heavy black curtain dropped over his mind. His last thought was that—finally—he was either dying or falling asleep, but it didn’t matter. Inside the cushiony darkness that embraced him, he—finally—found rest.
Part Three: Morning Has Broken
Morning came like it never had before. With a startled cry, Ben awoke from a deep sleep, his eyes snapping open as he raised his head from the pillow and looked around. The lining of his nose was stinging from the sharp smell of disinfectant, and when he raised his hand and touched it, he felt a crust of dried blood. The harsh glare of daylight that illuminated the Venetian blinds made him squint. Every slat looked like a narrow bar of molten gold. The accordion shadows they cast rippled across the wide, wooden windowsill and across the floor to the edge of the bed.
Where am I? he wondered as he struggled to clear his mind.
Still confused, he glanced around at the unfamiliar room, but he couldn’t begin to orient himself. The bed he was lying in was unfamiliar. It was high off the floor and had a firm mattress that was covered by fresh-smelling sheets and a pale blue, cotton blanket. The wall opposite him was painted dull beige and looked like soft caramel in the diffused daylight. Directly across from his bed was a framed watercolor of a sailboat that was leaving a thin wave of foam as it streaked across a stretch of clear, blue water. Ben could almost imagine he heard the rush of waves and smelled the salty tang of the air. When he saw the curved steel railing that ran the length of the mattress and several pieces of medical equipment beside the bed, he realized that he was in the hospital.
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