by Mark Lukens
He remembered Marla’s face when they first got here. She seemed so happy for the first time in such a long time. She seemed secure. They finally had a decent place to live, money coming in, and Richie had been sober for three months by then.
They had only been here a month and then Lizzy was swept out to sea. Alyssa, two years older than Lizzy, was supposed to have been watching Lizzy while they played on the beach. But Richie knew the fault really lay with him and Marla. They had snuck up into the rocks while the girls played on the sand. They’d found a private place to make love.
When their daughter’s scream pierced the afternoon air, everything changed.
The next few minutes were like some kind of nightmare that Richie wanted to erase from his mind, but the hyper-real details wouldn’t go away. He had tugged his pants back up right there behind the rocks. He hadn’t bothered with his shirt.
Something bad was happening, and his senses were on fire.
He ran down to the beach and saw Alyssa standing near the surf, staring out at the roiling ocean.
“Where’s Lizzy?” Richie screamed as he ran across the wide beach towards his daughter. He ran over rocks embedded in the sand, but he didn’t even feel their jagged edges biting into the soft flesh of his feet. He didn’t feel anything except fear, because he really didn’t need his daughter to explain what had happened. He could see in those few seconds that his younger daughter was lost out there in the ocean somewhere.
“Daddy . . .” Alyssa cried, the tears streaming down her face underneath the bright sun. “She was just here . . . just a few seconds ago.”
Richie jumped into the roaring surf, swimming out into the cold, unending waves. He screamed Lizzy’s name. He dunked his head under the surface like he might catch a glimpse of her pale body flailing around in the murky water. Please God, he prayed. Please don’t let me lose her.
Hours later the police were there on the beach, all three of the town cops. Many of the townspeople had volunteered to search the beach and the rocks up on the shore, hoping that Lizzy had been swept down the shoreline in a rip current and managed to escape half a mile up the beach. Maybe she was somewhere among the rocks, in shock and exhausted from her fight for survival, but alive.
But Richie knew that Lizzy wasn’t going to be found sitting on a rock waiting for them. Alyssa had told him that she’d seen Lizzy swept out to sea. She cried and told Richie that she’d tried to swim after her, but she couldn’t save her.
Richie could’ve scolded his daughter for even letting Lizzy in the water. Neither one of them was supposed to be in the water when he and their mother weren’t around. But he didn’t yell at her. He didn’t even look at her. And that seemed to make his daughter sob even harder as Marla hugged Alyssa’s shoulders.
Now, three nights later, Richie lay in bed in the darkness—darkness except for that rhythmic splash of light from the lighthouse that washed over the bedroom window with dependable timing. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to feel. He wanted both the old man’s spell to work and not to work.
He froze for a second as his wife’s scream pierced the night.
“Richie!” his wife shrieked from deeper inside the house. “Richie, come here now!”
Richie jumped out of bed and ran from their bedroom to the kitchen where his wife stood at the sink. She stared out the kitchen window that looked down at the beach below.
“What is it?” Richie asked, fighting both hope and dread at the same time.
For a moment Marla didn’t look away from the window, like she was afraid that looking away would make what she’d seen disappear. But then she slowly turned to look at Richie with shock in her eyes, her mouth quivering as she tried to form words. “Lizzy. I saw . . . I saw Lizzy just now . . . down on the beach . . . she’s alive . . .”
Richie shook his head. The reality of the situation was hitting him. That old man couldn’t be right. His daughter was dead. The old man couldn’t have brought her back. Could he?
He stood in front of the sink and stared out the window which was now just a black square of night. “Turn off the kitchen light,” he snapped at Marla. After the light was out, he stared out the window, mentally counting down the sixty-six seconds until the next swath of light from the lighthouse splashed across the beach, the beam stretching out across the ocean, lighting the beach enough to see the small footprints in the sand that led from the surf up towards their house.
She had come out of the water. But how was that possible?
The light was gone, the beach and ocean cloaked in darkness again.
Alyssa had come into the kitchen. She stood at the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, her eyes dinner plates of curiosity and hope. Had she overheard Marla? “What’s going on?” she whispered.
Before Richie could answer, there was a knocking at the front door. Three loud knocks.
“It’s her!” Marla cried and ran for the front door.
Richie was about to grab his wife. And what? Stop her? Tell her that this wasn’t possible?
But he didn’t. He let her run towards the living room.
Marla unlocked the front door and swung it open. Richie and Alyssa stood next to each other at the edge of the living room, watching.
Lizzy stood in the doorway. She was still wearing her pink, one-piece bathing suit and it was soaking wet. The pink suit was stained with dirt, and there were a few tears here and there. Her long dark hair clung to her shoulders. Her skin was so pale it almost seemed to glow in the darkness of the front porch. Her eyes were so dark, just soulless circles in her face. No feeling there now . . . no life.
Marla shrieked and grabbed her daughter, hugging her, holding her. “Oh God, you’re alive! Thank God you’re alive!”
Lizzy seemed like a rag doll, limp and lifeless in Marla’s arms as she squeezed her and rocked her gently back and forth.
Richie looked at Alyssa. His daughter’s eyes were filled with fear. It was like she instinctually knew that the little girl in their doorway wasn’t her sister anymore.
As Marla walked Lizzy to the kitchen, Richie hurried to the front door and closed it. Then he locked it.
*
An hour later, Marla had given Lizzy a bath and dressed her in a white flannel nightgown. After the bath, Marla had turned the heat on for Lizzy, but to Richie it felt uncomfortably hot already. His wife now flew around the kitchen like a bird trapped in a cage, gathering dishes, ladling out stew for everyone, floating high on a cloud of bliss as they all sat at the table.
“What happened?” Richie asked his younger daughter as he watched her.
Lizzy gazed down at the bowl of stew her mother had placed in front of her, but it seemed like she wasn’t really seeing the bowl of food, like she wasn’t seeing anything.
“Lizzy,” Richie whispered. He touched her wrist to get her attention and then drew his hand back like he’d touched a live wire. Her skin was so cold.
Lizzy looked at him and shook her head ever so slightly with a vacant, confused look in her eyes.
“Where were you?” Richie asked. “These last three days . . . where were you?”
“Oh, don’t badger her, Richie,” Marla said with a gigantic grin on her face. “She’s back, and that’s all that matters.” Marla looked at Lizzy. “Eat your stew, honey. You must be starving.”
Lizzy obediently picked up her spoon and dunked it into the brown stew. She brought a spoonful up to her white lips with a slightly trembling hand. She opened her mouth just a bit and shoved the spoonful of stew into her mouth.
Alyssa watched her sister in shock as the stew slid right back out of her mouth, dribbling down her chin onto the tablecloth.
“Something’s wrong with her,” Alyssa said as she looked at her father in horror. “Can’t you see that something’s wrong with her?”
“She’s just been through a traumatic experience, that’s all,” Marla said. She already had a cloth in her hand, cleaning Lizzy’s face.
“You don’t have to eat right now if you don’t want to, baby,” she whispered to her daughter.
*
When it was time for bed, Alyssa pleaded with Richie and Marla to sleep with them. She didn’t want to sleep in the same room with her sister.
Lizzy stood in the doorway to their bedroom, waiting and watching with emotionless eyes as her sister begged to sleep with her parents.
“You’re too old to sleep with us,” Marla said. “You need to keep your sister company. Look out for her.” And her expression seemed to add: Like you didn’t do before on the beach.
“Can I sleep on the couch?” Alyssa asked with tears in her eyes. “Just for tonight?”
Marla was adamant. She wanted Alyssa in the bedroom with Lizzy. She wanted her to protect Lizzy, be there for her if she woke up in the middle of the night.
Marla stomped off to the girls’ room to tuck Lizzy into bed. Alyssa stood in the living room and turned to Richie in one last-ditch effort. “Daddy, something’s wrong with her,” she whispered.
Richie just nodded. He understood his daughter’s fears. He knew what was wrong with Lizzy. She wasn’t natural. She had been dead underneath that ocean for three days and now she was back. That old man hadn’t brought his daughter back to them alive; he’d brought a dead girl back to them.
“Maybe Lizzy will tell you what happened to her,” Richie whispered to Alyssa.
“No,” Alyssa answered with her chin quivering, her eyes welling up with more tears. “She’s mad at me for letting her die. She wants to hurt me.” Her voice was getting louder, more hysterical. “She wants to make me pay. I know it.”
“I’ll talk to your mother about it,” Richie told her. “But I think she’s going to want you to sleep in the room with your sister.”
*
Hours later Richie lay in bed. His wife was sound asleep. It was the first time she’d slept deeply since Lizzy had died.
Yes, she had died. That was it. She had died. She had been dead for six days and now she was back. He had wanted his daughter back more than anything in the world, but he wanted his Lizzy back, not this thing that had come from a watery grave.
“Dad! Mom!”
Alyssa’s screams shattered the silence of the night.
Richie was out of bed in a flash like he’d been subconsciously ready for this all night. He ran through the dark house, his bare feet thundering on the wood floorboards.
Alyssa stood outside of her bedroom door, hugging herself, shaking and crying, looking so thin and frail in her white nightgown.
Richie grabbed his daughter’s shoulders a little too tightly, his hands sinking into the flesh of her tiny shoulders, bunching them together more. “What happened?”
“I woke up and . . . and she was on top of me in the bed. Her mouth . . . it was open wide. Like she was going to . . . to bite me or something.”
Richie let Alyssa go, and he even moved in front of her, shielding her as he turned and stared at the dark doorway to the bedroom. He couldn’t see anything past the doorway, and the light from the lighthouse hadn’t splashed across the bedroom windows yet. He waited for the light, mentally counting down the seconds. He strained his ears, listening—but there was no sound from inside their bedroom . . . not even the sound of Lizzy breathing.
Then the light came.
For those few seconds of light Richie saw Lizzy asleep in her own bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, her eyes closed, her dark hair splayed out around her on the pillow, and then the bedroom was swallowed up in darkness again.
“She’s not asleep,” Alyssa whispered from behind Richie. “She’s never going to sleep or eat.”
Marla came running up to them, groggy, pulling her housecoat closed around her body. “What’s happening?’
Alyssa was about to explain, but Richie jumped in quickly. “Alyssa had a nightmare. That’s all.”
“Where’s Lizzy?” Marla cried as she dashed to the bedroom. She disappeared into the darkness of the room, lost for a moment in that darkness until the splash of light from the lighthouse lit up the room again and revealed Marla beside Lizzy’s bed, hovering next to her, watching her little girl sleep.
Richie turned to Alyssa who stared up at him. “You can sleep out here in the living room,” he told her. “I’ll start a fire in the fireplace.”
Alyssa nodded, her face shiny with tears, but she didn’t look like she was going to sleep tonight.
*
Richie stayed up most of the night, sitting out in the living room with Alyssa so she could go to sleep. She didn’t have to go to school because the school had given her a few weeks off so she could grieve for her sister.
What about Lizzy going to school? Richie wondered. Surely Marla would want to notify the school that her little girl had come back. She would want to tell everyone in town that her daughter wasn’t dead, that she had come back to her, that she had somehow battled the waves and the elements, the cold and darkness, and fought her way back.
But Richie knew none of that was true. That old man, that witch or warlock or whatever the hell he was, he had summoned this dead girl somehow. Richie knew that he needed to go and see that old man again. He crept into their bedroom and watched Marla for a moment, making sure she was asleep. She was out, breathing deeply, able to sleep now that her daughter had come back. He moved silently through the darkness to their dresser, and then stood still as the light from the lighthouse invaded their bedroom for a moment. When it was dark again, he opened the top drawer and dug out his pistol from underneath his underwear and socks.
*
As the sun rose over the ocean, Richie woke his wife up. He told her to stay inside for the day and get some rest. She told him that she needed to take care of Lizzy. Richie promised her that he and Alyssa would look after Lizzy for the day. Marla smiled—that seemed okay with her—and then she closed her eyes. Soon she was sleeping soundly.
Lizzy was awake and sitting at the kitchen table; she stared straight ahead at the wall, lost in a daze, her eyes focusing on nothing. Alyssa watched Lizzy from the living room, curled up in the corner of the couch.
“Why can’t I go with you?” Alyssa asked her father as he put a jacket on.
“Because this is something I have to do alone,” he told her.
“I don’t want to be here with her,” she whispered, her eyes darting to Lizzy at the kitchen table.
“Your mom’s here.”
Alyssa just stared at Richie.
“I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” Richie told Alyssa, and he kissed her on her forehead.
He was out the door before his daughter could argue with him more, and he walked towards town. He marched up the hill through town and then up into the woods. He found the old man’s shack. He pounded on the front door.
No answer.
“Open up!” Richie yelled. He felt the heavy and reassuring weight of his pistol pressing against his lower back, the weapon shoved down into the waistband of his pants, hidden by his jacket. He would get the answers he needed from this old man one way or another.
He pounded on the door again even harder . . . and then the door opened up on its own, the hinges creaking in the morning air.
Richie took a step back. He was about to reach for his gun, but he made himself wait a moment.
“Old man!” Richie called at the dark doorway. He didn’t even know the old man’s name.
No answer.
Richie took a step towards the doorway, his eyes adjusting quickly to the gloom beyond. There was nothing inside. No furniture, no possessions . . . the place had been cleaned out.
He took a step inside, then a few more steps. He walked gingerly across the floorboards, looking around. The place was dark and quiet. It smelled musty.
“Hello?” Richie called out hesitantly.
No answer. And there wasn’t going to be an answer—nobody was here.
But the old man had been here, Richie told himself. Hadn’t he?
Richie bolt
ed out of the shack and raced down the hill towards town, towards the Crook’s Den Bar. He rushed inside and asked the bartender about the old man who lived up in the shack at the edge of the woods.
“Nobody’s lived up there for years,” the bartender said coldly.
Other patrons were looking Richie’s way, suddenly interested in his lunatic ravings. He looked at the men, not remembering any of their faces from his drunken binge the other night, but they seemed to remember him. A few of the men sat together in a tight group, just watching. What had he said while he was in here the other night? What had he done? Had he stumbled up the road to that old shack in the woods and imagined the whole thing?
Had he imagined Lizzy coming back from the ocean?
Maybe the pressure of his daughter’s death had snapped his mind. Maybe he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t.
Richie suddenly felt sick. He felt like the whole world was spinning out of control.
“You okay?” the bartender asked, but his words sounded like they were coming out in slow motion, and there was no real concern in his voice.
“Maybe he needs a drink,” one of the old men in that tight little group said.
A few of them laughed.
The bar’s patrons grew bolder with their comments. “Can’t handle his liquor,” another said.
“Leave him alone,” an old woman said with a pity that hurt Richie more than their mean remarks or their suspicious eyes.
Richie just shook his head and tried to smile. “I . . . I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I need to get back home.”
He ran down the street through town towards the sea, towards his house and the lighthouse next to it. Back to his wife, his Alyssa . . . and his Lizzy.
*
When he burst inside the house, he almost expected to see Marla still grieving over their lost daughter. Or maybe he expected to see all of them again . . . maybe Lizzy had never died. But what he found was exactly what he’d left. Alyssa was still curled up on the couch, and Lizzy was still sitting at the kitchen table staring blankly at the wall.
