A Dark and Stormy Knight

by Bridget Essex

  I make certain that the collar is secure (though not too tight), and I get up. I’m wearing a black skirt, and there are bits of gravel sticking to the skin of my knees. Bent over, brushing a hand over my legs—that’s when I see it.

  I see what Sammie’s been growling at.

  I straighten, my brow furrowed, peering down into the dark, flowing waters of the Buffalo River.

  I thought I saw…

  I gasp, my mouth open, straightening as I peer down into the black.

  It couldn’t be.

  The river is flowing slowly, sluggishly. The moon is dark; there was only a thin crescent earlier, and it has already set. The stars overhead cast little light, so when I lift my mini flashlight and shine it down into the water, I see…

  No.

  It’s a body.

  Sammie is growling at a body floating in the water.

  For a long moment, I stare at it, really stare at it. Because humans think we see ourselves everywhere, right? The trash bag on the side of the road—we think it’s a body for that first half a second, before we realize the truth. We see human faces in pieces of toast, in weird wallpaper designs on the walls. We’re trained to search for a human resemblance in things. Maybe it’s instinctual.

  So, it’s probably trash is my initial—and somewhat desperate—thought. The river is, after all, pretty polluted.

  But when I stare at the shape longer, I start to face facts: that doesn’t look like trash at all. It looks like a body. But...I don’t want it to be a body. I don’t want it to be someone who drowned, or someone who was murdered and dumped in the Buffalo River, because that would be awful. My heart aches as I stare down at the body-shaped thing. I swallow, trying to make my hand stop shaking as I hold the flashlight higher, trying to make out features…

  And then my heart falls out of my chest, or, at least, it feels like it does. Because those floaty bits riding the water’s surface…are hair. Long strands of hair.

  Yeah.

  That’s a body.

  “Oh, God,” I moan, my fingers tightening in the fur of Sammie’s coat. He leans his shoulder against me, either to comfort me or to comfort himself.

  I have to do something, call someone… Should I call 911? I’ve never called 911 in my life. Is that what you do when you find a dead body? I don’t have my cell phone on me, I realize then. It’s back in the Ceres. I left it charging in the kitchen.

  Sammie and I stare at the body in the water, and I try to decide what to do.

  And that’s when… Well, I think my eyes are playing tricks on me…

  But I could have sworn the body moved.

  It’s summer, and we haven’t had much rain this year. The newscasters have been talking about a drought, so the river is low and sluggish, and the body hasn’t drifted far from the place where I first noticed it, bobbing gently on the surface of the dark water.

  But as I trained my tiny flashlight beam on it a moment ago, I thought I saw the head move.

  I gulp down air, lean over the edge of the escarpment, and squint.

  And the body moves again. The right hand comes up, the skin pale white—cadaverous, I think. Still, the hand rose from the water vertically, not in any way that a current could pull a limb.

  Oh, my God.

  The person in the water is alive.

  But he or she is floating face-down.

  I weigh my options for a split second as I reach up and squeeze my fingers around my gold pendant. And then I’m tossing my purse to the ground, kicking off my flats, looping Sammie’s leash around one of the metal poles on the side of the wall…

  And I leap into the water.

  I wasn’t prepared for it to be so cold. We haven't had the warmest summer, and it was a cloudy day, with a particularly spectacular thunderstorm earlier. The storm had just been clearing up when I brought the boxes of pizza back to the Ceres. There was no sun today to warm the water.

  God, it’s freezing.

  I gasp as my head breaks through the surface; I'm treading water as I glance around madly, trying to place the body now. I’d leapt down with my flashlight, but when I hit the water, the flashlight spun out of my hand,. It’s gone. And that means that there’s no light for me to see by other than the far-distant shine of the stars.

  It’s pitch black down here between the metal walls, and—for a brief second—I panic. I can’t see a thing; I can’t see the body I threw myself into the river to save, and I have no idea how I’m going to climb out of here when I reach said person—if I can even find them.

  Okay.

  Think, Mara.

  I take a deep breath, squelching my panic.

  First thing’s first: find the body.

  Or, rather, find the person. It’s not a body anymore; it’s a living person.

  But he or she might not live for much longer if I don't act fast.

  I glance up to where Sammie is peering over the edge of the escarpment. He isn’t staring down at me; he’s still staring at the person in the water, his nose is pointed to my left.

  So I set off with a strong breaststroke to my left, and after three strokes, I stop, treading water, and I check in with Sammie again. He’s still peering to my left, so I swim some more, gasping against the cold.

  My hand bumps against something in the water.

  I scream—just a little.

  But what I hit was soft, and it felt like a person.

  I draw in a deep breath.

  I didn’t expect to run into him or her so suddenly; I thought I’d be able to see them by now, be able to make out something when I got close, but the darkness is too absolute to see my hand in front of my face. I reach out, and my hand brushes against something soft again, and then hard: the back of the person’s head.

  I trail my fingers down the head and toward the shoulder, and I start in confusion as my hand reaches…metal?

  What the hell? Why does this person have metal on their shoulders?

  It doesn’t matter. I spit some water out of my mouth (it tastes just as gross as you’d imagine), and I grimace as I hook my fingers around the metal plate, hauling the person against me. I wrap my arms around their shoulders, and I pause again in surprise.

  The person is completely covered in metal. For half an instant, I wonder if the cold water is playing tricks on me, numbing my fingers...

  But then my confusion evaporates, because the person groans a little, a low sound that’s accompanied by a deep cough.

  “Hello—are you okay?” I ask, and—obviously—they’re not okay, but I have no idea what else to say in this situation. The person groans again, and when I listen closely to the sound they make, I begin to think that the person in my arms is a woman.

  I kind of suspected that, with the long black hair, but it was impossible to tell anything for sure from the land above, and even now I’m not certain, especially since she’s covered in metal.

  The problem with being covered with metal?

  Yeah, she isn't exactly buoyant.

  I grimace as I try to lift her body higher in the water, but even though I’m straining with every muscle, the feat is near-impossible. That’s why she was floating face-down: she has a metal back piece and two shoulder pieces, but the majority of her weight is centered on her chest piece, making her top heavy and effectively pulling her face under.

  The woman moans again, and she’s coughing violently against me; she spits water out, dragging it from her lungs. I glance toward the metal wall closest to me. Sammie is peering over—so, so far above.

  I really didn’t think this through.

  Because what stands between us and dry land is a wall made of ridged metal—no beams, nothing but those vertical ridges that, even if they were horizontal, would be impossible to climb over because of their soft slope.

  I kick as hard as I can, but the woman is slipping in my arms, and holding us both above the surface is incredibly difficult even if I’m just treading my legs. If I try to actually swim… Well, I move about a foot
forward, and she’s slipping farther down, her metal-clad front end tilting her head underwater.

  “Hello?” I call desperately, trying to shake the woman awake. She’s stopped groaning and coughing. She's not fighting at all as her face slips underwater again. That can’t be a good sign. “Hello?” My voice cracks with fear as I shake her a little harder, my fingers gripping the slippery metal on her shoulders.

  Her face comes up, rising out of the water, and she inhales, struggling for air.

  “Please try to stay awake,” I beg, kicking with all of my might, trying to keep us both above the surface. “Can you swim?” I ask her, spitting water out of my mouth, but she doesn’t answer me, only groans, and her head lolls to the side.

  Her face goes underwater again.

  I gasp, my head plunging under, too, as her weight comes onto me, forcing me beneath the water. I remember hearing something once about how sometimes, when swimmers try to save drowning people, they drown themselves—and then I realize that’s the least useful information right now. Terror seizes me, as cold as the water surrounding us.

  I can’t just let her die. Sure, I could let her go. I could swim to the edge of the wall, feel my way along until I reach something like a ladder or a pipe, climb up, and save myself—and only myself. And that would be the shittiest thing imaginable. Without me pulling her out of the water, this woman is going to die, and I would be complicit in her death if I don't help her…

  She will die without me, and there’s not a world in which I’m going to let that happen.

  Anger inspires my legs to kick harder: anger at the impossible situation, at the stupid metal walls, at the cold, cold water. The anger pumps through me, warming my body and giving me the strength to heft the woman's face out of the water again. I can’t tell if she’s breathing, but I don’t have the time to check.

  I’ve got to get us out of here.

  Now.

  I just…have no idea how I’m going to do it.

  Over the sound of the gentle waves, I hear Sammie on the wall above us. He’s whining, a high-pitched, distressed yowl. I listen to him, blinking water out of my eyes, and then I turn my head around to look up at him. He's is peering over the edge, looking terrified. I spit water out of my mouth, and I kick back with my legs, heaving the woman up as high as I can. Her face breaks the surface, and that’s going to have to be good enough until…

  Until what, Mara?

  I reach out with my hand, floundering through the water, but I’m rewarded by the sensation of corroded metal beneath my fingertips.

  I’ve hit the wall.

  Sammie begins to bark. Normally, his bark is pretty deep; he’s a big dog, after all. But there’s an unmistakable note of fear to the sound.

  “It’s okay, buddy!” I yell up at him, or try to, but my throat is so raw. I’m exhausted, trying to prevent both this woman and myself from drowning. I lean against the metal wall, and I gape up at the faraway night sky, searching for something familiar, something soothing.

  And I think about those stars, about the fact that they’re ghosts.

  I really, really don’t want to be a ghost. Not yet.

  Not now.

  My hand, trailing along the edge of the metal wall as we’re pulled along by the sluggish current of the river, brushes against something I wasn’t expecting.

  For a moment, I wonder if it’s just a pipe attached to the wall, and even if it is, it’s something I can hold onto, something I can hook the woman’s arm through… But no, it’s even better than that.

  “Yes!” I yell hoarsely, adrenaline surging through me.

  It’s a rusting metal ladder.

  Chapter 3: Do You Believe in Magic?

  The ladder is bolted to the side of the metal wall—right here, exactly when I need it. A ladder. Safety, salvation…whatever you want to call it. I whisper thank you to the stars, and then I loop my arm through the bottom rung and heave the woman up as high as I can, maneuvering her arm through the rung, too.

  But she’s unconscious, so her body sags; her face is still half-submerged.

  Okay, just because I found a ladder doesn’t mean we're out of hot water yet. Ooh, hot water. I wish the water we were in right now was hot. I’m going to take the hottest shower in the world when I get out of this situation, but right now, I have to focus.

  The woman—because she's covered in metal and waterlogged—is heavy, and I’m worn out, but I have to push past my limits. We're so close to safety now...

  First things first. This isn’t like a pool ladder with rungs beneath the water. The bottom rung hangs about an inch above the surface. I’m going to have to heft myself up onto the bottom rung with my arm strength alone.

  Good Lord, it’s the hardest thing I've ever done, heaving my body up high enough to hook my foot onto that bottom rung. My entire being screams in protest, but somehow—thanks to adrenaline or luck—I manage to do it. Then I’m reaching down and gripping the woman’s shoulder plates; I groan in pain as I begin to lift her up toward me.

  It’s the most excruciating experience of my life, climbing up the ladder and pulling the woman after me. Rung after rung after rung. I’m not sure how I accomplish it, but after an eternity of pain, swearing, and searing, tearing muscles...it's over.

  When my hand reaches over the edge of the metal wall and strikes pavement, I let out a gasp of pure, unadulterated joy, and when I drag the woman onto dry land, I collapse beside her, rolling onto my back and staring up at the stars with my heartbeat thundering like a summer storm inside of me.

  I did it.

  I saved her.

  I saved us.

  I exhale the longest sigh, and that’s all I allow myself before I sit up, rolling the woman onto her back.

  Her shoulder thumps against the cement with a dull metallic clang. I stare down at her, and I realize a few things all at once: one, she’s still unconscious; two, she’s no longer breathing...

  Shit, shit, shit.

  And…

  I mean, all of these thoughts occur to me in the same instant, so I don’t feel particularly guilty that, when I take in the sight of her face for the very first time in the dim light of the stars...

  She’s beautiful.

  That’s…kind of an understatement. She’s gorgeous. She has a sumptuous, full mouth, and her face is finely sculpted, with high cheekbones and an aristocratic nose. She looks… This is going to sound cheesy, but she looks noble, somehow.

  Her long dark lashes rest against her too-pale cheeks, and they don’t stir.

  In this heartbeat, as I stare down at her, as I realize that she’s not breathing, that she’s beautiful, and that she might already be dead, a fierce pang of determination surges through me.

  “Not on my watch,” I whisper, and I kneel beside her, pulse pounding in my ears. “You can’t quit on me, not yet,” I murmur to her, and I search my memory, trying to remember the time that the Red Cross brought someone in to teach my Girl Scout troop how to perform CPR…when I was eleven.

  Yeah, that was a while ago. And I don’t remember much, other than the fact that the dummy tasted like disinfectant.

  Sammie is tugging madly on his leash, trying to come over to me. He’s about thirty feet down the bank, and I want to go comfort him, but I don’t have time to do anything right now but save this woman.

  If she’s even savable.

  God, I hope she’s savable. It would be horrific if she died because I didn’t remember how to give mouth-to-mouth.

  I take a deep breath. Okay. I’m supposed to tilt the chin up. My fingers are wet and shaking as I place them under her chin. She’s so soft beneath my fingers, but her skin is cold—no, freezing.

  “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” I whisper like a mantra as I lean down over her. My heart is beating so hard that I feel lightheaded. I take another deep breath, stars winking at the corners of my vision, as I lower my face to hers.

  “Please, please, please,” I whisper.

 
And I kiss her.

  It starts out as a kiss, because, save for that CPR lesson when I was eleven, I’ve never done mouth-to-mouth on anyone before. And in movies and television shows, mouth-to-mouth always looks like it starts out with a kiss and then moves on from there. So I press my mouth to hers, and I’m shocked at the sensations that fill my body.

  So…strange. I kiss this stranger, and time is suspended. Everything seems to…stop.

  Her mouth is cool against mine, but there's a faint warmth beneath her skin. And I know this sounds weird, but it feels like a spark. As if something ignites between our mouths, like the shock that you get when you rub your socked feet on the carpet and touch someone. It’s that bright, that electric…but it’s not painful. It’s warm. And weird. And unexpected…

  But I don’t have time to be surprised by anything. Gently, I force her cool, full lips apart with my own, and I breathe into her.

  Nothing.

  I take another deep breath, and I reach up, carefully pinching her nose closed this time. I exhale again, a little more forcefully, my hot breath rushing between my lips and into her.

  Again, nothing.

  “God, no, no, no,” I whisper, sitting back on my heels. I stare down at the motionless body in front of me, and I reach out, patting my hands over the contours of metal over her breasts. I tap harder, but I can’t get through it to pound the water out of her lungs.

  I try, anyway. I hit her harder, pushing down on the metal plating with the heel of my right hand. But it doesn’t budge.

  “Damn it!” I whisper, my voice catching as I stare at my trembling hands. I'm shaking from the cold of the water, from the exertion of dragging her up the ladder, from the fear of failing to save her. “You can’t die,” I whisper, and in desperation, I take one more deep breath, lean over her, and press my mouth to hers.

  I breathe into her, filling her with my air one last time, my mouth hard against her own, that spark shocking me again, leaving me gasping…

  The woman convulses beneath me, and I sit back quickly as she coughs up water, rivulets pouring over her face. She turns, coughing more water onto the pavement. Her body is wracked with coughing as she tries to breathe, and I tap her gently on the shoulder, relief flooding my soul.