Mark Taylor Omnibus (The Mark Taylor Series)

by M. P. McDonald

  He sipped his beer and leaned against the bar as George lined up a shot, but all he could see was the little girl lying in the sand.

  “Hello?”

  Blinking, Mark flinched as George waved a hand in front of Mark’s face. Annoyed, Mark said, “What?”

  “Dude. It’s your turn.”

  The annoyance slipped away. “Sorry, man. I was just thinking about something.”

  “No problem.” George held up his bottle of beer. “You ready for another?”

  Tilting his bottle, Mark drained it and shook his head. “No, I think I’m going to finish this game and then head out.”

  George glanced at his watch and shook his head in disbelief. “It’s not even ten yet. Man, you’re getting old!” A smile took the edge off the dig. He set his bottle down. “Then we might as well finish up before I get a refill.”

  Obliging, Mark took his shot and made it, but missed the next one. George ran the table after that.

  Mark returned the cue to the wall holder and shook George’s hand. “You finally got me. I’ll bring my ‘A’ game next week. You better watch out.”

  With a laugh, George shook his head. “I might quit while I’m ahead. Whatever it was distracting you tonight worked out in my favor.”

  He was about to deny the distraction, but shrugged instead. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I was a little preoccupied.”

  “Hey, how did it go in Afghanistan? I heard you and Mo went there?”

  Mark dug in his pocket for his car keys, spinning them around his finger as he replied, “It went…okay. It didn’t go quite as I planned though.”

  Leaning against the bar, George signaled for another beer. “Really? What happened?”

  Mark was tempted to tell George about Mo’s lack of contribution towards taking the photos for the book, but he thought better of it. It wasn’t like Mark had been overworked, and it was possible Mo had always intended for Mark to do most of the photography while he supplied the narrative. Besides, it was Mo’s book and he had paid for Mark’s trip so he wasn’t out anything except a few weeks’ time. “Nothing I can put my finger on. I probably misunderstood what my role was; besides I got a cool looking antique camera from a bazaar. So in the end, it was all good. Anyway, I’ll see ya later. ”

  George clapped him on the back. “Later, amigo.”

  * * *

  At home, Mark eyed the stack of photos he had left on the coffee table and couldn’t resist sorting through them until he found the one of the little girl again. He studied it for several minutes, noticing the features of the lifeguard for the first time. He looked vaguely familiar. Had he been working the beach where Mark had taken the photos of the lake? It was hard to tell because he had only seen the young man at a distance but the dark hair was right. If it was the same guy, he certainly hadn’t been performing CPR when Mark had spotted him.

  A throbbing headache took up residence behind his eyes and he let the picture slide from his fingers to rub his temples. There was no explanation for the picture. At least nothing that made sense. He headed to bed, detouring to the sink for a glass of water and a couple of aspirin.

  The little girl played in the surf, her squeals of delight nearly drowned out by the pounding waves. Her mother stood in the water nearby, watching with an indulgent smile. A young boy called to her and she turned away and spoke to him, saying something about a cooler. When she returned her attention to her daughter, the little girl was gone. The mother’s scream pierced the air. Mark stood on the edge of the shore wanting to dive in to search, but his feet felt mired in the sand. He struggled to lift them to no avail. A dark haired young man in red swimming trunks rushed past and dove into the water. The mother kept pointing to the last place she had seen her daughter and screaming, “Gabby!”

  Another lifeguard, a woman, joined the first. A third must have signaled to the rest of the swimmers to leave the water, because soon the beach was full of children, but a hush had fallen. Sirens wailed in the distance. An eternity passed before the male lifeguard emerged from the water with the little girl limp in his arms. He was already giving mouth to mouth. The female lifeguard took the girl and set her on the sand as she checked for a pulse. Mark flinched when his gaze reached the little girl’s eyes. They were open, but flat and unmoving. Like a porcelain doll, she stared at the sky.

  The duo performed CPR until paramedics arrived. The paramedics took over CPR with a third paramedic trying to start an I.V. He shook his head and then reached into his box for something and a minute later, to Mark’s horror, pushed something into the little girl’s leg just below the knee. His stomach flipped and he broke out in a cold sweat.

  Mark jolted awake with a gasp. Levering up on his elbows, he cast a wild look around the room, blinking in surprise when he found he was in bed and not standing on the beach. A dream! Thank god. A whiff of fish and lake water followed him from his dream, but even as he recognized the scent, it slipped away. He flopped back and scrubbed his hands down his face. His heart hammering and wide awake now, he sat on the edge of the bed. His palms rested on his thighs, but they shook like a china plate in an earthquake. Unsettled, he stood and went to the kitchen for a drink of water. He gulped down a full glass, finally ridding his mouth of the gritty foul taste before he went into the living room area and turned on a light. The photos still sat on the coffee table. He ignored them and wished he had never seen the picture of the little girl. He guessed it must have been on his mind as he fell asleep and the image had entered his dream, turning from a still photo to a full featured film.

  His imagination had even added details like the fishy smell and the little girl’s name. Where had he come up with that one? He didn’t know any Gabbys. He sank onto the sofa, his mind going over the dream until he finally became drowsy again, and turned to lie on the couch, pulling the blanket folded on the back down over him.

  He slept until his phone woke him up and he bolted out of bed again. He found his phone on the kitchen counter and recognized Mo’s number on the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Mark. Did I wake you?”

  Mark glanced at the clock on the stove. Seven-thirty a.m. “Uh, no, not really. I needed to get out of bed anyway. So…what’s up?”

  “I got your film sorted out from the trip and you have some great shots. I’ll be going through them and matching them up to points I’ll be making in the book. I just wondered if you could go over some of them with me and give me the background on them. I didn’t realize you had taken so many photos.”

  Mark scratched his head and yawned. With his brain still foggy from sleep it took him a second to get his bearings. Today was Sunday and he had nothing booked. “Sure, no problem. I can be there about ten.”

  “Sounds good.”

  As soon as Mark hung up, he regretted his promise to go, which puzzled him. He stumbled back to the couch and grabbed the blanket, wrapping it over his shoulders as he curled on his side. Since they had returned from Afghanistan, he hadn’t heard from Mo. Something had been off about the last part of the trip—Mo had not only gone on a retreat, but had retreated into himself, barely speaking to him during the long return flight. Mark had tried to put it off to fatigue, but he couldn’t help wondering if he had offended Mo’s family somehow. Granted, he had taken photos of women, but after the one time he had been caught, he had been careful and had refrained from even glancing at a woman. Most of his photos had been taken with his telephoto lens to minimize the chance that anyone would know exactly what he was photographing.

  Mark let the blanket slide off his shoulders and headed for the shower. Even though he had looked forward to working on the book, he was reluctant to do it today. Instead, the urge to return to the beach where he had taken the photos with the old camera gnawed at him, but he had no rational reason to go back. It wasn’t like the little girl would be lying there in the sand. It had just been a dream provoked no doubt by the crazy photos. Besides, he wanted to find out if he had done something to anger Mo.

&n
bsp; * * *

  “Good morning, Mo,” Mark said as his friend waved him into his apartment. “I brought some coffee and donuts.” He raised a bag of donuts for his friend to see and balanced a cardboard tray with the coffee cups and an assortment of creamers in his other hand.

  “Thanks. Just set it on the kitchen table. Be careful of the papers and photos though.”

  Mark complied, angling his head to see the picture peeking out from beneath the papers. It was the blue color that had caught his eye. It was the color of many of the burqas that the women in Afghanistan had worn. He had seen a few other colors like black or gray, but blue had been the most common color.

  He started to reach for the photo, but Mo grabbed his arm. “Hold on. I have them numbered and stuff. I don’t want to mess it up.”

  “Sorry.” He tried not to take offense at the reprimand, but there was something about Mo’s tone that bugged him. Taking a coffee from the tray, he shrugged off the annoyance and peeled the plastic tab back on the lid. Ignoring the creamers—they were for Mo, he took a sip. Maybe his own feeling of anxiety about his dream and his irritation with Mo was simply a lack of caffeine.

  “So how does this all work?”

  Mo shrugged. “I have a few connections. In fact, our trip was paid for by a sponsor.”

  “Really?” Mark grinned. It had bothered him that his friend had paid for the tickets and accommodations, such as they were, but he reminded himself that he hadn’t been paid for his work while over there either and he had taken time from his own business to go. “Who’s the sponsor? A women’s organization?” It made sense to him.

  Instead of answering, Mo narrowed his eyes. “It doesn’t concern you.”

  Taken aback, Mark set his coffee down and spread his hands. “Did I piss you off somehow?”

  The hostile look dropped off Mo’s face and although a smile replaced it, it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “No. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “Look, I’ve got a lot on my mind today too, so why don’t we do this another time?”

  “But you might forget the details.”

  Thinking back to the circumstances surrounding the photos, Mark shook his head. “No way.”

  Mo scowled, made a shooing motion and said, “Then go. I know this means nothing to you. I might just throw all your photos away.”

  Stunned at the reaction, Mark remained rooted to the kitchen floor for a moment, but then spun for the door ready to slam it on his way out, but instead, he stopped with his hand on the knob and turned to face Mo. “You know, I was honored when you asked me to go to Afghanistan with you. It was an opportunity to do some good and I wanted to be a part of it, but I have to admit that I was also eager to get my photos in your book.” His face heated at the admission as he avoided Mo’s eyes. “Most of my jobs are ads in magazines or catalogs. Basically, my photos sell stuff. That wasn’t how I envisioned my career when I started out. I looked at this as my big chance to make an impression—you know, like those iconic photos in Life or Time.”

  He paused and blew out a deep breath as he tried to put into words the frustration he felt, his hand tightening on the knob. “But after seeing that woman beaten, it just seemed like I wasn’t able to do enough—that I won’t ever be able to do enough—but I still gotta try. So, you do whatever you want to do with the photos, but you are dead wrong when you said the book meant nothing to me.”

  The anger had eased from Mo’s expression, but he remained silent.

  With a firm nod, Mark left, pulling the door closed behind him with a soft click.

  * * *

  “Dammit!”

  Mark banged his fist on the steering wheel after starting his Jeep. He glared at the apartment building, debating if he should go back in and finish detailing the photographs. His stomach rumbled and he realized he never had eaten a donut. To hell with it. He would give it a week and call Mo. By then this would all blow over.

  He drove aimlessly, but before he knew it, he was at the same beach he had been at yesterday. He felt silly chasing after the nightmare and chided himself that it had been nothing, just a bad dream. Anxiety still churned in his gut, but he blamed it on hunger. Following that logic, he grabbed a burger at a drive through and headed back to the loft to watch a Cub’s game.

  As he dozed on the sofa, remnants of last night’s dream plagued his sleep. The details weren’t as clear as they had been during the night, but that fact didn’t ease his anxiety, and instead only fed it. As the images blurred, he awoke to a feeling of overwhelming despair. He sat on edge of the sofa, head bent, massaging the back of his neck. This was crazy. He stood and paced to the window, bracing his hands against the side window. He had never been plagued by nightmares before. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one. Maybe when he was six or seven? So why now?

  Brimming with questions but void of answers he could think of only one way to get rid of the image once and for all. He had to go to the beach and prove to whatever inner demon was harassing him that there was no little girl drowning on the beach.

  * * *

  It was after three when he arrived. Parking had been almost impossible to obtain and now, hot and sweaty, he strode along the shore, photo in hand as he tried to match up the images in it to any of the beachgoers. With such a hot day and back to school just around the corner, the beach was packed.

  At first, Mark tried to match up the little girls running around and splashing in the surf with the image of the little girl in his photo, but the child in the picture was so lifeless, she didn’t seem to resemble any of the children he could see. As he stalked back and forth along the shore, he attempted to locate where on the lengthy beach the CPR scene had taken place. In the background of the photo, he saw pilings in the water, but that didn’t help pinpoint the site because they occurred at regular intervals a few hundred feet from shore. The back of his neck burned from the sun, but even worse, he felt the blistering stares of some of the parents. He couldn’t blame them for being suspicious. If he ever had a kid, he would be keeping a sharp eye on any guy who behaved as he was.

  The crowd finally started to thin out as families packed up and parents took their tired children home. Mark felt stupid as he trudged through the sand on his third pass along the shore. Kids were starting to look familiar now, but he didn’t know if it was because of the photo or only because he had seen them on his first two passes. He scanned the water, but after an hour, the glare from the water sent a spike of pain through his forehead and he longed to go home. He would just go to the end one more time, turn around and walk back.

  Halfway to the end, he spotted a girl whose swimsuit resembled the one on the girl in the photo, but she was only knee deep and scooped water in a little cup, dumped it and repeated the process several times. She seemed fascinated with pouring the water through the fingers of her opposite hand. Mark smiled and continued to the far end of the beach, did an about face and headed back. When he was at the mid-point, he looked for the little girl again. A shard of fear cut into him. He couldn’t see her, but he brushed his fear aside. The assurance acted as a Band-Aid as he tried to stifle his irrational fear. She had only been a few steps into the water, and her mother had probably just called her back to their blanket or something. This whole exercise had been a waste of time on his part, but at least now he could put the nightmare to bed.

  A scream rent the air and an instant later, the lifeguard’s whistle blew. Mark felt as if someone had slugged him in the chest and zapped him with a Taser all at the same time. He spun and watched as a lifeguard dove into a wave. A woman sobbed and pointed into the water as a lifeguard from an adjacent chair raced to the point where the first had gone in. The lifeguard blew her whistle and directed everyone to get out of the water.

  The first lifeguard surfaced much farther out than Mark would have expected in such a short time, but the young man only came up briefly, grabbed a breath of air and ducked beneath the surf. He repeated the process several times before he
came up with a limp little girl. She was the same girl that he had passed just moments before.

  Horror lodged in Mark’s throat, choking him. He staggered back as the lifeguard laid the little girl upon the packed sand. Mark gulped in an attempt to swallow the horror. Her eyes. Merely slits and absent signs of life, they reflected only blue sky. With a hoarse curse, he stumbled and turned, racing for his car. How could he have taken this picture yesterday? At the bottom of a dune, his knees gave out and he vomited onto a tuft of grass.

  * * *

  Mark glared at the picture, pointing with one finger as he kept a tight grip on the neck of a beer bottle.

  “You can’t exist!”

  With a sharp flick of his wrist, he tried to send the photo sailing across the room, but it boomeranged and landed on the recliner to his right. The little girl was head down, and from this angle, the slit eyes seemed to watch his every move. Upside down, the photo appeared sinister, her eyes accusing him of failing to save her.

  “I didn’t know! I didn’t know…how was I supposed to know you were real?”

  He drowned a sob, tipped the beer bottle, and drained it. Leaning forward, he set it on the coffee table, not caring when it wobbled and fell, rolling into the six other bottles before stopping with a clink.

  His phone rang and he glanced over to where it rested on the cushion beside him. Mo. He didn’t pick it up and instead, opened a fresh beer from the carton. He had five more. That should be enough to get him some sleep without the nightmare of the drowned little girl.

  He flipped the beer cap, aiming for the now empty carton of the recently polished off six-pack, but missed and the cap skittered off the table and rolled in a circle before spinning to a stop beneath the chair. He took a long noisy guzzle, lowering the bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Why had he been shown the tragedy? And how? He didn’t believe in psychics or telepathy or any of that crazy hocus-pocus shit. When he had arrived home, he had opened the back of the camera, inspecting the inside. There was absolutely nothing within it which could explain how it could have worked. It was just an old scratched hunk of metal.