by Jay Brandon
Outside, Kathy walked her guests toward the beach. The Lefflers were laughing, agreeing on what a marvelous time it had been. Would Kathy and Michael come to the Lefflers’ house? So they could return the hospitality?
At the boardwalk, they parted ways, but Kathy stood watching as they made their way down the beach, Jack with his cardboard box full of mostly empty bottles, and Vivian with her shoes dangled over her shoulder.
Inside the cottage, Michael was still asleep on the sofa. He had never been much of a drinker. She hoped he wouldn’t suffer too much the next morning, but she didn’t have the heart to wake him for aspirin and water. Instead, she covered him with a throw blanket, and brushed the hair gently from his face.
The next day, Kathy was still asleep when Michael woke up. There was a book on the dining room table, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Michael remembered the book from his one and only college English class. He hadn’t gotten through all of Prufrock; it was poetry after all. Some old crazy guy counting spoons and hearing mermaid voices. It was boring poetry at that. In fact, it was one of the most boring books he had ever read. At least it was if you didn’t count one of the other books in the course, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. That book was really boring. There was a governess and ghost, but nothing happened. Well that book was one more reason why Michael didn’t like ghost stories. He picked up Prufrock and opened it to the title page. Someone had written an inscription. “To Jack,” it said, “From Tom. Remembering Harvard.”
Michael dressed, tried to leave the house as quietly as possible, and made his way to the beach. He was going to buy a cup of coffee, but instead chose a bottle of orange juice from a vendor. It was the beginning of a new program. He had to get into better shape. There were copies of the local newspaper at the stand, and he scanned a story about the local bank robbery. No one had seen the robber clearly, no one could give a good description. Most agreed the robber was tall, white male, and one witness thought the robber was wounded by an armored car guard. The guard himself was in stable condition in a Corpus hospital. There was mention of a traffic stop on the island in connection with that manhunt.
Another article mentioned a young man’s disappearance while swimming near the jetty but his name was withheld until the family could be notified.
Michael bought a cup of coffee for Kathy, and by the time he got back to the cottage, she was awake and ready for the beach.
The beach people were in their chairs on the sand, or lying on their towels, not talking much. Many of the island tourists were gone or preparing to leave. Even so, there were still hundreds of people scattered down the miles of beach on this last day of real summer. Since they didn’t have to go home for days, Michael and Kathy’s summer seemed endless. Except for the day one had to pack up and go home, every day was the same at the beach, and therefore timeless. Island time. That was its appeal.
Far, far out, at the edge of the eye’s limit, the green water met the blue horizon, but the Gulf continued far past that line, to Florida, into the Caribbean. Near the horizon an occasional structure was barely visible: oil platforms. But they looked tiny as seagulls; a wave could engulf them on a whim. The boats closer to shore also looked like brave little anomalies, unaware that the world was vast and dangerous.
Michael watched the water. Jack’s words of warning came back to him. Ghosts, he thought derisively. But the water, wide and mysterious, swallowed his disbelief as easily as its tide washed away a mollusk. Anything could have infested that water. If one watched it long enough, the idea of standing and walking out into it, down along its floor, became compelling. The waves didn’t just tumble in; they slid out again, slyly, like a beckoning hand; the ceaseless waves that want us back. Groping fingers of water trying to clutch and pull us back into the sea where we began. Where we belong.
Michael was glad Kathy hadn’t wanted to go in more than knee deep.
This morning the water was dark, impenetrable.
As he watched, Michael felt watched in return: the depressing feeling of being observed by caustic strangers he couldn’t see. The feeling threatened him with immobility again. He wanted to turn his head but was afraid. He could feel Jack’s words of warning, as strong in memory as it had been in actuality. If you’ve seen them, you may be in danger.
“I think it’s warmed up by now, don’t you?” Kathy said.
Michael shuddered. “Let’s – “But she was already up and running toward the water. He scrambled to his feet and caught up to her where it was only thigh deep. When he stopped running, the sand beneath the water began to slide out from under him and suck at his feet. Kathy had waited for him. She was grinning. The water was cold on their warm skins, but she turned and plunged ahead.
“Wait!”
She went down. The water took her. Michael ran as fast as he could against the impeding tide. He felt things brush against him. Ghost fingers.
With a shout, Kathy rose out of the water in front of him. She flung back her hair, splashing water across Michael’s chest.
“Thank God,” he said. Kathy didn’t hear him and wouldn’t have
known what he meant. She was laughing.
She turned and stared at him. “Go under, Michael. My God, you look like you’re freezing. You won’t get used to it until you go under.”
“I’m all right.” He flinched as something else brushed his side. This one had a claw to it, scratching. He reached into the water and grabbed it. It felt like lank barbed wire. Seaweed. Of course seaweed.
Kathy leaped again, this time atop him. “Ack,” Michael said briefly, before her hands hit his shoulders and pushed him down. He plunged into the murky water, feeling bubbles rise around him, Kathy’s hands on him, unknown horrors scrabbling at his legs and waist. He pushed upward, carrying Kathy with him. She came out of the water laughing again, her arms around him. Under the water her leg curled around his. They kissed, briefly. It would have been a fine moment if Michael hadn’t felt awash in fear.
Kathy fell back from him, lay back slowly, trusting the water. Her stomach and waist rose into view. Michael stood beside her, trying to root
himself in the shifting sand at his feet, arms close to his chest. Under the water he was making shooing motions with his hands, trying to induce the indifferent tide to carry the flotsam of the sea away from him.
The sun cooked, the water soothed. The sea seemed to grow warmer around him, and less murky. He let a wave lift and carry him, alongside Kathy. He put his head back on the pillow of the wave. The sea was his old friend, his first lover. As time passed and nothing happened, and with Kathy floating peacefully beside him, Michael relaxed. He even stopped flinching when strange touches brushed him. That always happened, he remembered. The Gulf was full of the living and the dead: fish and crabs and seaweed and all kinds of little specks of matter. Kathy didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. Even what felt like fingernails scraping his back failed to revive Michael’s apprehension.
Then a hand grabbed his ankle and pulled him under.
Michael’s gasp turned into choking as his head was dragged below the surface. He flailed, trying to swim, but he was still going down. The hand’s grip was strong, so tight it hurt his ankle just above the bone. Michael turned, twisted, trying to claw at the hand. He almost lost the last of his air in a scream when his hand closed on a slender wrist. It gripped his ankle like a manacle.
Michael kicked as hard as he could, spreading his legs. He couldn’t see anything in the gloom of the water, didn’t know which way was up.
The hand’s grip slipped. Michael kicked again, stronger in desperation. The hand lost its hold for a moment. Michael clawed armfuls of water. The bubbles of his lost air were rising in front of his face. He followed them. He’d been floating in only shoulder-deep water, but now it seemed miles to the surface. The water was black as earth. The hand that had pulled him under grabbed at his leg again, slid along his calf, but missed its purchase as Michael kicked, wildly, like a frog.<
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His head burst through the surface into air. He would have been screaming, but he had no air left. He gulped it in frantically, in and out, still
kicking as he expected to be pulled under again. He heard a scream, and
the sound of splashing.
Michael leaped, rising out of the water, looking around frantically. Kathy was ten feet away. A wave was rising behind her. She was about to be engulfed. Michael ran and swam and clawed his way toward her, but the wave beat him to Kathy, taking her under. It smashed over Michael’s head too, but he fought through it to the spot where he’d last seen her. He reached wildly into the water, found nothing, saw nothing. He dived under, flailing his arms and legs in all directions. Nothing. He dived again. This time tendrils flirted with his wrist. Hair. He reached, found her head. He got his hands under her armpits and pulled, kicking away. Something was holding Kathy down, but she rose slowly with Michael.
His head broke the surface, and a moment later so did hers. Kathy’s eyes were open wide. Michael pulled her, kicking desperately, until he felt sand underfoot. He tried to run, pulling her along, now by her hand.
“Michael,” Kathy screamed. It must have been even more terrifying for her because she had no idea what was happening, hadn’t had any warning. Michael was determined to get her out of the water, even if he was sucked back in himself. He dared a look back and saw nothing sinister except the water itself, dark and clutching. He could still hear the screams of the other victims being pulled under.
“Michael!”
He’d made it to the sand bar, where the water was barely knee deep. There was still deeper water between them and the shore, but for the moment they were safe.
“Michael.”
He realized Kathy was pulling at his hand, trying to pull free. “What’s the matter with you?” she said, exasperated.
He let her go. A wave broke on the sand bar, making the water rise to their waists. Foam swirled around them.
“Something! Someone!” he shouted.
“Who?”
“The – “Even now he found he couldn’t say it. “ – the things that pulled me under. And pulled you – Didn’t – ”
“Michael, I was just swimming. Nothing pulled me except you.” “Listen. Didn’t you hear the screams? The others were going down
too.” He looked around. He saw people struggling in the water. A few, amazingly unaware of what was happening, still floated on their backs or on air mattresses, at horrible risk.
“Run,” he said. “Maybe while they’re distracted – ” “Wait.” Kathy pulled back on the hand he had grabbed. “The screams, Kathy. Didn’t – ”
“Like that?” she said. She was looking at him strangely, almost
smiling. The thought crossed his mind that she was in on the conspiracy. Somehow she had died during that night he’d found her on the porch and she was one of them now.
Yes, he did hear the scream again. A woman’s voice shredded the air. He turned. It was a horrible sound, a piercing shriek –
Of laughter. His eyes found the woman, a plump blonde wearing
lipstick so red he could see it even at the distance of forty yards. A man had her wrist and was trying to pull her into the water. The blonde made that horrible sound again, that spine-scraping peal of laughter, but her bright lips were stretched in a smile as she played whale-ishly coy and splashed water back at the man. It was clear nothing was happening against her will.
“But – ”
He still heard the sound of splashing. But looking around, he could see no one being pulled under the water. Only people willingly jumping in, or splashing each other, or throwing sticks for dripping dogs to fetch. The raised voices were the normal sounds of people enjoying the beach.
“Michael, what is wrong with you?”
“Something grabbed me,” he said. He felt like a fool. He folded
his arms across his chest. The breeze felt cool. “This water gives me the creeps.”
“Apparently so,” said Kathy, obviously irritated.
He didn’t try to explain. It would have been futile, with Kathy thinking him silly and happy people splashing safely in the water all around them, menaced by nothing more dangerous than lurking seaweed and diving gulls.
Kathy picked up The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and started reading.
She noticed that Michael was trying to read the cover. “It’s a book of poems. Jack lent it to me.”
“Oh,” he said. He didn’t tell her he had tried to read it once, or that
he thought it was totally boring. She was already annoyed with him.
“By the way,” she said. “The Lefflers invited us for drinks tonight at their house, and I accepted.”
“You what?” Michael exclaimed.
“They came to our place; now they’re returning the favor.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a favor,” Michael said. “Can’t we just stay at home instead? I mean, those people . . .”
“Those people what?” she said, suddenly angry. “Well?”
Reluctantly, he told her about the gun in the Mercedes, about Jack’s sudden disappearance from the beach when the police arrived. “I think they may be criminals,” Michael said. “The newspaper said that the bank robber was wounded!”
“So you think the Lefflers held up the bank?” Kathy was incredulous. “Michael, maybe you should see a psychiatrist.”
Michael paused a long time before responding, waiting as if trying to decide what to say next. Finally, he spoke.
“I did see a psychiatrist once,” he said, “during my time in Maryland.
I was having some bad dreams. The doctor called them symptomatic delusions.”
“Symptomatic delusions. You mean like people trying to drown you, or strangers being robbers.”
“I guess.”
“You never said anything about your psychiatrist before.” “I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
“No, you just let me think I was the only one with problems!” “I’m sorry, Kathy. I really am.”
She stared at him.
“So now you’re afraid of the Lefflers? Is that it? Well, good news, Michael, you don’t have to go.”
“Kathy.”
“I’m going. You do whatever you want.” She walked into the bedroom and slammed the door. Michael stood motionless in the living room. The thought of facing the Lefflers was disconcerting – but the thought of Kathy’s anger was much worse.
C hapter Five
he driveway to #16 Shoreline Drive was marked by an inconspicuous
gray shell-shaped sign at the main road. The driveway itself was gray as well, made up of crushed shells. In the fading light, the driveway emitted an otherworldly glow, reminiscent of stories Michael’s mother read to him as a child, stories of forest elves and gnomes. But there was no forest here, only dunes. The Subaru staggered down the drive like a hesitant interloper – and Kathy’s severe silence only made it worse.
Around the second curve, the house came into view. “House” was
perhaps too modest a description, but “mansion” seemed inappropriate – so house it was. Old but strangely ageless, the house was the same gray as the crushed shell drive and the twilight sky. It was a wood-frame building, but adorned with a formal portico more elegant than usually seen in beach houses. The overall color and appearance would not have been out of place in the sets of slightly graying or sepia-toned photographs often found grouped on glossy pages in the center of popular nonfiction books.
Michael and Kathy approached the front door, hesitating on the portico, like wary petitioners at the lord’s manor. Each was comparing the Lefflers’ place to their tiny cottage. This was a higher order of beach house. In her invitation, Vivian had mentioned that get-togethers at the Lefflers’ tended to be more formal affairs, so Michael had put on a clean Hawaiian shirt. The shirt was decorated with a cadre of tiny surfers, and its yellow color didn’t really match his brown leather jacket. Kathy wore
a sundress and sandals. Her anger was ebbing, but an increasing nervousness seemed to be taking its place.
Summoning up his courage, Michael rapped on the front door. Silence. He glanced at Kathy, then knocked again. Still there was no response. Waiting a decent interval, he turned the knob and found the door open. “Come in,” called a voice from upstairs, a voice that to Michael’s ears was not so much a welcome as a summons.
Inside a dark world greeted them. A high ceilinged entryway lay before them with a long, elegant, curved marble stairway leading to the upper floors. The balustrade was intricate as well, with flourishes of bronze leaves and flowers. To the right off the entryway was a tall set of thick and polished wood sliding doors half opened and beyond the doors a large salon also paneled in dark rich wood. In the center of the salon was a fountain featuring a nymph-like creature carrying water in a sea shell which overflowed into a small pool at her feet. The voice called again, though this time just what it said was unclear.
Then there were footsteps on the stairs and Jack appeared. He wore white-tie, tails, and waistcoat, a flower in his lapel. Immediately, Michael, and he was certain Kathy as well, felt poor and unrefined.
“Welcome, welcome,” Jack said, hail-fellow-well-met. Jack’s arm was still bandaged, but he grabbed Michael’s hand with a grip so strong he winced in pain. “And Kathy,” Jack said, kissing her gently on the cheek.
Jack was good, very good; he was the perfect host. Michael leaned precariously against a marble table and pulled more often than necessary at the collar of his Hawaiian shirt.
They followed Jack into the salon, where their host took up a position behind the bar. While Michael and Kathy watched, Jack artfully mixed up a batch of martinis in a beautiful silver shaker. “I prefer the traditional martini,” Jack said as he shook the ice in the shaker. “One third vermouth, more vermouth than is currently popular.” Michael listened impatiently; he just wanted a drink.
