by Marty Shaw
“What the hell?” Chris muttered. It was just a girl. He took a step forward and used his best coach’s voice; the voice that made hardened football players shake in their shoes. “You’re in big trouble, little girl,” he said firmly.
Still on all fours, the girl scurried towards him, like a crab. Chris took an automatic step back, fighting to keep a shout from leaving his mouth. The girl stopped, still looking at him, her eyes cast in dark shadows, water dribbling from her parted lips, her pale skin seeming to almost glow in the dim light.
The assistant football coach repressed a shiver, a cold spike of fear sliding down his back like an icicle. He took another step back towards the door, never breaking eye contact with the girl. He noticed in an almost absent-minded way that she was wearing a black and gold Barracuda swimsuit. She tilted her head and looked at him, the deep shadows and pale skin making her eyes look like the empty sockets of a skull.
“Look,” Chris said, irritated that his voice shook. “It was an accident, and accidents happen. I’m sure we can work this out.”
The girl’s face twisted into a snarl, more water pouring from her mouth. “Accidents happen,” the girl rasped out, sounding like her throat was filled with water.
“Yeah,” Chris said, a nervous smile on his face. “No big deal.”
The girl growled. It started low in her throat and then slowly became louder, and then she was charging towards him again, moving effortlessly on her hands and feet like a giant pale crab. Chris turned and ran. The door was just a few feet away. If he could just make it through the door, he could slam it shut and trap the girl—or whatever it was—inside the swim gym.
Chris’s fingers grazed the silver bar of the door. Something heavy landed on his back and he felt cold, soft, squishy arms wrap around his neck. “Very big deal,” the girl’s garbled voice whispered in his ear, her arms tightening around his neck. He tried to scream but his lungs were suddenly filled with water, burning with chlorine. He fell to the ground, spitting up water. The girl was gone but he couldn’t breathe. He inhaled sharply and gagged, spitting out more water. He willed himself to move but his body, unable to find any oxygen, wouldn’t respond. He lay on the cold concrete, his vision growing dim, wishing he had stayed home with his wife, as his waterlogged lungs burst in his chest.
FOUR
The 1972 Cadillac Miller Meteor hearse pulled into the parking lot of Tall Pines High School, moving slowly through the rows of cars and finally parking in a space near the front door marked ‘Visitors,’ the early morning sun casting long shadows across the pavement. A tall, thin woman with graying hair and glasses that looked like cat eyes stood at the top of the front steps, frowning down disapprovingly at the vehicle.
“Is that the welcoming committee?” the blond guy in the passenger seat asked.
“I believe so,” the redhead behind the wheel said. “Don’t you feel welcome?”
He looked at her. “There’s a Mickey D’s a few miles back. It’s not too late to blow this off, turn around, and go grab some pancakes and sausage for breakfast.”
Ashley rolled her eyes as she opened the driver-side door. “Pancakes later; spooky stuff now.” She climbed out of the hearse, running her fingers through her long red hair. She waved at the older woman at the top of the steps, slapping on her friendliest smile. “Ms. Harrimon?”
The blond snickered as he climbed out of the passenger side of the vehicle. “Ms. Harry Man,” he said not quite under his breath.
Ashley shot him an evil look.
“Yes, I’m Ms. Harrimon,” the woman confirmed, ignoring the blond’s outburst. “I assume you’re Ms. Andrews?”
“That’s me,” Ashley said, motioning back towards the blond trailing behind her. “And this is my little brother, Derek.” She caught the sarcastic eye roll before he dropped his gaze to the ground. He hadn’t been thrilled with being volunteered for the role of little brother, but at twenty-one, he stood a better shot at passing as a high school senior than she did. She was quick to point out, though, that being twenty-four didn’t mean she was ancient; she just thought Derek was more suited for it.
“Meaning you want to be the older sibling so you get to be in charge,” Derek had said. Ashley had refused to answer such an unfounded accusation.
“You had neglected to mention that your vehicle would be so. . .” Ms. Harrimon looked at the hearse. “Lively.”
Ashley laughed. “Good one.”
The assistant principal stared at her, her mouth set in a straight line that somehow managed to express how much she disapproved of the vehicle. Her eyes moved from Ashley’s face down to her Attack of the Killer Tomatoes t-shirt. Somehow her disapproving look managed to become even more disapproving.
Ashley dropped her green eyes to the ground, suddenly feeling like she was about to get saddled with a week’s worth of detention. “Sorry.” She usually didn’t care what anyone thought of her lively vehicle or the horror t-shirts she normally wore, but she had to get into the school. She had seen the news online about the two mysterious deaths that had occurred two days ago, and a little research had shown that these weren’t the only deaths that had happened near the school swimming pool. She had to see that pool. Even if it meant acting like the demure little thing that she definitely wasn’t. She had even tucked the silver pentagram necklace she always wore inside her shirt.
Ms. Harrimon turned her attention to Derek, her eyes taking in his black t-shirt from an Exhumed concert, blue jeans, and brown work boots, skimming across the lower half of a vulture tattoo peeking out from under the left sleeve of his shirt. He nonchalantly blew a bubble with his gum, returning her stare.
“You’re eighteen?” Ms. Harrimon asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
For just a moment, Ashley feared the assistant principal was going to call him a liar to his face. Instead, she pointed to a trashcan by the front door. “No gum on school grounds, and you’ll have to cover that tattoo when on school property in the future.” Her eyes flicked over to Ashley. “If he’s accepted as a student.”
The smile that had started to form on Ashley’s smile fell flat. Of course, she didn’t really care if Ms. Stick-Up-Her-Butt accepted Derek or not. This visit was all about touring the school . . . and getting a look at the pool.
After staring at them for a few more seconds, Ms. Harrimon spun on her heel and headed for the front doors. “Follow me.”
Sharing a silent high-five behind the assistant principal’s back, Ashley and Derek quickly climbed the steps to join her.
Twenty minutes later, Ashley was bored out of her mind, and Derek’s eyes had that familiar glazed look that suggested he was in his own head somewhere, either imagining himself on stage with his favorite band or shooting a blockbuster movie. It wasn’t that the school wasn’t nice. It was just... school. They had seen three classrooms, talked with one teacher, visited the computer lab, and were just now completing a tour of the cafeteria. Ashley couldn’t recognize the foul smell coming from the kitchen and was very thankful they wouldn’t be eating lunch here. The smell was even strong enough to pull Derek from the fantasy land inside his head.
“What died?” he asked, scrunching up his face.
Ms. Harrimon looked at him, mildly offended. “All meals are certified and approved by the state.”
“That doesn’t mean the food tastes good,” Derek muttered under his breath.
The assistant principal stopped walking. “What was that?”
“Let me apologize for my rude brother,” Ashley said quickly, giving Derek an evil glare. “He’s just nervous about starting fresh at a new school. Changing schools was kind of a last-minute thing.”
Ms. Harrimon pursed her lips together like she had just sucked an especially tart lemon. “Yes, I can’t wait to hear why such a change is required. I imagine it will be an interesting story.”
“It’s a sad, tragic tale,” Ashley said, keeping her voice solemn. “But I’d prefer to focus on something happy and fun rig
ht now, like your rocking swim team. I read that the Barracudas used to kick all the butt and now the school is bringing them back.”
A small smile formed on Ms. Harrimon’s face. “Yes, we’re very excited about the return of our swimming program.”
“Could we see the swimming pool?”
The smile disappeared. “That won’t be necessary. The Barracudas are a women-only swim team, so there’s nothing of interest for your brother there.”
“Please?” Ashley asked. “Just a quick peek?”
The assistant principal’s eye narrowed.
Derek exhaled heavily. “Give it up, Ash. She doesn’t know what’s up but she knows something’s up.” He gave a little bow, extending his hand towards Ashley. “Allow me to introduce you to Ashley Andrews, host of Haunted Ashley, a ghost-hunting show on YouTube. We’d really like to check out the swimming pool where people keep dying because we believe it might be haunted.”
Ashley stared at Derek, her mouth open in shock, but she quickly regained her composure, flashing her most photogenic smile at the assistant principal. “What my eager and impetuous assistant means is that we are open to the possibility of—”
Ms. Harrimon held up a hand. “Get out. Now. Or I will call the police and have you arrested for trespassing.”
FIVE
Ashley leaned the six-foot-tall ladder against the brick wall, looking up at the row of windows set along the far wall of the swim gym. They were a little higher than the top rung of the ladder but still close enough for her to easily reach. She looked at Derek smugly. “People laugh because I drive a hearse, but could you fit a ladder in a regular car?”
“You could drive a truck or van,” Derek said.
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Boring. The Meteor has style. It says something about the person driving it.”
“It says you’re a freak.”
Ashley laughed as she started climbing. “It pays to be honest.”
Derek looked up at her, bracing the ladder. “That’s not the impression I got earlier when you were jumping my ass.”
Ashley stopped and glanced down at him. “There’s a time and place to be honest. . . and that was neither the time nor the place to say why we were really here.”
Derek shrugged. “That was boring. This is more fun.”
Ashley shook her head and continued climbing, but she couldn’t keep a small smile from creeping onto her face. She’d never admit it in a million years but Derek was right. This was more fun. It was a little before midnight and they were sneaking onto school grounds, and into a school building, to investigate a swimming pool that might possibly be haunted and responsible for several deaths. Life didn’t get much better than that.
Steadying herself at the top of the ladder, Ashley pressed her palms gently against the window frame and pushed up. “It’s not moving.”
“Push a little harder,” Derek said. “These windows probably aren’t used often so it might be stuck.”
Ashley applied a little more pressure and pushed again. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the window slid up about half an inch. She sighed, relief washing over her. She hadn’t really been looking forward to actually breaking a window—for some reason, what they were doing didn’t seem quite so illegal if nothing was actually broken—but Derek had said people usually don’t bother locking windows that are high up off the ground. He had seemed very confident about this supposed fact.
When the window started to open, Ashley vowed that she would never ask Derek how he came to possess such an interesting piece of trivia. She had already learned the hard way that digging into his past could unearth some unsavory and embarrassing things that she preferred not knowing about.
After pushing the window all the way open, Ashley pulled herself through the opening, hanging from the window sill with her feet dangling several feet in the air. Taking a deep breath, she let go, exhaling on the landing. She could feel it almost instantly. There was something here. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck was standing up, a chill running through her, making her shiver. She reached up and grasped the pentagram around her neck, back on the outside of her shirt where it belonged. She closed her eyes and concentrated, willing the cold away, mentally pushing it away from her. She didn’t know how it worked, but it did. Derek said it was all in her head, but she knew better. She could sense. . . things. Ghosts, demons, spirits. No matter what label you slapped on them, she could sense their presence, which was how she knew for sure now that this was no ordinary swimming pool.
A sound over her head drew Ashley’s attention up to the window. Derek was halfway through, holding his camera with one hand. She waved him off. “No, Derek,” she whispered. “You stay up there. I’ll need you to pull me up when I’m ready to leave.”
Derek looked disappointed, but he nodded. “Why are you whispering?” he asked in a normal tone.
Ashley winced. “Shhh. There’s something here.”
“Chills?” he asked, his voice lower.
She nodded, reaching up towards him. “Give me the camera.”
Derek looked at her like she had lost her mind. She had expected as much but figured it was worth a try. His camera was a fancy thing; a Canon X-something or other. All she knew was that the night-vision was awesome and it had some fancy stabilization stuff that created stable images even when walking fast. Derek treated it like it was his only child.
Still hanging halfway through the window, Derek shook his head and lifted the camera to his eye. “No thanks. I’m good. Great angle from up here.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Boys and their toys,” she said under her breath, but the smile was back on her face. Derek’s love for that camera was one of the indisputable facts of life. If he ever treated it like it was no big deal, something was wrong with him. She pulled her phone from her pocket, tapped on the flashlight app, and ventured deeper into the building.
Aside from the swimming pool, the swim gym looked like any other school gym. There were bleachers along one wall, colorful posters along the walls that showed competition-winning swimmers from the school’s past, and banners hanging from the ceiling over the pool. And then there was the pool itself, the row of lights running along the bottom of it giving the whole gym an almost otherworldly feel.
Just looking at it, the one word that came to mind was big, but a little online digging helped define that a bit more clearly. Thanks to the power of Google and a little research into the once-legendary Barracuda swimming team, Ashley knew the pool measured 25 yards long by 50 meters wide, to accommodate training for both long course and short course competitions. She also knew the water shouldn’t be bubbling as if it were boiling.
Moving closer towards the edge of the pool, Ashley waved at Derek and pointed towards the middle of the swimming pool, the roiling water creating waves that traveled the length of the pool. She turned her flashlight app off and pocketed the phone. The inside of the gym was growing brighter. At first, Ashley had thought the lights in the pool were somehow getting brighter, but now she realized the water itself was glowing, with the brightest area being located at the area of disturbance.
Another wave of cold rushed over Ashley, so sudden and unexpected that she gasped out loud and stumbled back. Trembling, she clamped her lips tight to keep her teeth from chattering. She felt like a bucket of ice had been dumped over her head. The roiling of the water increased, the frothy, churning water rising higher. Something began to emerge from the center of the turbulent mass. Ashley could feel the rage coming from the. . . whatever it was. It scraped across her skin like dull glass. She suddenly knew, with absolute certainty, that if she was still standing here when the thing emerged from the water, it would kill her without a moment of doubt, remorse, or hesitation.
The turbulent water suddenly exploded from the pool, a column of raging water rising high into the air. Ashley turned and ran, sprinting for the open window. She could feel a wall of unnatural cold behind her, slowly getting closer.
Derek had the cam
era aimed straight at her, filming all of it. His face looked so white in the eerie lighting of the gym that it almost glowed. “Run, Ash!” he shouted. “Don’t even think about looking back. Just run!” He reached down and grabbed her wrist as she jumped up for him, pulling her up so forcefully that she thought her shoulder would pop out of place. Something cold—as cold as the grave, her brain insisted on saying—grabbed for her ankle, fingers like icicles skimming across her flesh, and then she was through the window and flying through the air. She heard the window slam shut a second before she hit the ground, knocking the wind out of herself.
“You okay?” Derek called down, the rattle of the ladder letting Ashley know he was climbing down.
Slowly, painfully, Ashley rolled over, running her hands down her torso to make sure her shirt hadn’t ridden up, and to make sure no ribs appeared to be broken. She was good on both counts. “I think I’ll live.”
Derek stepped off the ladder and reached down to help her up. She reached up and took his hand, letting him do most of the work involved with getting her back on her feet. She rotated her shoulder and winced. “I’ll be feeling that for a while.”
Derek nodded, rotating his own shoulder, his camera hanging against his side from its shoulder strap. “Yeah, me too. You’re not as light as you look.”
Ashley frowned. “I’m not sure if I was just complimented or insulted.”
Derek smiled and winked. “Your choice.” The smile quickly fell from his face, replaced by a serious expression that looked unnatural on his face. “Just be glad you’re fast, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Ashley shivered, remembering the cold fingers against her ankle. She looked up at the window. There were several cracks spreading out from the center, almost like a spiderweb. The cracks weren’t there before. Something had hit the window; the something that had tried to keep her from escaping. “What was it?”
Derek patted the camera. “You’ll see. Those other ghost-hunting shows won’t be able to compete with this stuff.”
