He was right on target. The limb struck the Rotting Girl’s head with a loud thwack and she stumbled back. Wet flakes of gray/black ash, like burned newspaper, exploded silently into the air … both arm and skull poofed into a meaty powder and pattered to the floor in a fine dust, or evaporated into thin air.
Owen staggered back, shocked by what had just happened.
And yet she still came at them. Headless, one-armed, the Rotting Girl was still upright and surprisingly agile. She took advantage of Owen’s momentary confusion and lunged forward, wrapped her one arm around Randy’s neck and dragged him to the end of the walkway. Randy gasped and gurgled, but only pawed weekly at her. He was still too far gone to do anything.
Before Owen could move, the Rotting Girl pitched herself backward as hard as she could, and dragged herself and Randy both into the murky river. The splash was as thick and sickening as a corpse thrown into a pool of oil, and Owen rushed to the edge of the deck just in time to see them sink out of sight, still locked together, pulled down swiftly as if the water was conspiring to help this … this …
“Abomination,” Owen said under his breath. It was a word he’d never spoken aloud in his life. “Not fit to live. Not supposed to live.”
With no thought of the consequences – no calculation of the frigid water temperature, the depth, the river currents, even the dark – Owen took two steps back then charged to the edge of the wooden walkway and plunged head first into the Amityville River.
CHAPTER FIVE
At first the cold was so intense it wasn’t really cold at all – instead it was a soundless explosion of pain that nearly killed him. Owen surged to the edge of unconsciousness; for one instant he nearly passed out six feet under the surface of the Amityville River, but in that instant he knew, as sure as he knew anything, that he would die if he let that happen.
So he stayed conscious – barely. Find him, he told himself. Find him fast.
But how?
He kicked his legs, diving even deeper, and a strange kind of crystal clarity flowed through him. He could see his arms, still pointed straight out in front of him in a classic diver’s pose, but as he surged forward he realized he couldn’t feel them at all, and the water was so murky he could barely see the tips of his fingers.
Keep going, was all he could think. The Rotting Girl and Randy had tumbled into the river just moments before. They shouldn’t be far ahead.
His half-seen fingers abruptly tapped against something, and without hesitation he grabbed at it as hard as he could, as if clutching for safety. Though he couldn’t quite feel it through his freezing hands, he got some sense of bulk, of shape. It was big, thick-edged, and heavy. A work boot? He asked himself. Something like that. And since the Rotting Girl had been barefoot, slimy, thin … it had to be Randy. It had to be.
His lungs began to ache as he curled his legs under him to stop his forward motion. He tightened his grip on the thing in his hand and dragged back on it with all the strength he could muster. He lifted his other arm above his head and stroked, hard, dragging himself through the water. Up, he ordered himself. Up, up, it can’t be that far. It can’t--
He burst through the surface of the river, and frigid air rammed into his lungs. It was almost as painful as diving in had been; but an instant after his head broke through, he hauled his arms up as well, and Randy came with them, head first. He realized with a distant amusement that he hadn’t seized his buddy’s work boot at all; it had been the shoulder of his parka. Soaking wet, it was thick as a winter blanket, and heavy as stone. Randy wasn’t unconscious as Owen had feared; his partner began spluttering and cursing as the air hit him, flailing his arms about, disoriented and terrified, but awake.
And alive, Owen thought as he struggled for one more breath. Alive.
They were only a few feet from the wide riverside opening to the boathouse. “This … way,” Randy choked, and struck out for the walkway and the rusty ladder at its edge.
But Owen swam the few strokes to the edge of the weathered deck, his limbs as heavy as iron, and took a firm hold on one of its pylons. Only then was he comfortable enough to look back, to scan the water for any sign of the Rotting Girl.
There was none. The water rippled and humped around them, thick and slow-moving in the freezing air, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Three minutes later, both men were stretched out on the walkway planking, panting like a pair of laboring steam engines, drenched to the bone. Their teeth chattered like jack-hammers, air scraped through lungs like icy sand paper, but they were alive. For a long time, that was all Randy could say to himself, over and over:
Alive.
Some time later, when Randy could finally speak, he chose his words very carefully. He was distantly surprised at how normal his voice sounded. He had assumed it would be grating and hollow, like something from the grave. Instead he just sounded tired – weary beyond words.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I couldn’t stop myself. I knew it was stupid. I said, you’re insane, but I did it anyway. I did it … anyway.”
He had to stop and gulp in another breath of sharp-edged air. He’d spent all of his thirty years in New England, but he had to admit: he had never been so cold. Never. “I owe you my life,” he said harshly. “I was a goner. For sure. Thank you, Owen. Thanks ...”
He coughed up some river water and gulped in another breath. Owen turned his head to look at him, still breathing deeply, still pulling himself together. “It was just so … so unbelievable. You’re my partner. My best friend. I should’ve tried to understand, but it was just … so … crazy.” He forced himself into a sitting position and almost laughed: he could hear a thin crackling all around him, the water was freezing into a thin sheet of ice on his parka, and shattering softly when he moved. “Part of me still thinks this must be a dream,” he panted. “A nightmare, really. And I’ll wake up any second.” He shivered convulsively, his teeth still chattering, and cracked the beginnings of a smile. “Though I gotta say, I’ve never been this cold in any dream.”
Owen was still flat on his belly, looking up at his friend, dully amazed that the man was even alive, much less talking. “Randy,” he said, his voice rough and thin.
Randy leaned over him, still shivering. “Yeah, buddy?” he said. “What do you need?”
“Randy ...” he said it one last time. “Please.” He forced himself to roll over, to take in a deep breath and focus on the roof of the boat house. “Please shut the fuck up.”
Randy laughed. It hurt to do it, but he did it anyway, even though his face felt like a block of ice. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
Neither of them spoke for a full five minutes – not until some feeling started to creep back into their hands and feet. Simply being out of the water and sheltered from the rising wind helped somehow. As soon as he was able, Randy pulled himself to his feet and forced a grin. “Come on, you lazy shit. We better get ourselves somewhere warm pretty soon, or we’re gonna freeze to death. After all the trouble you went through, that’d be a stupid thing to do.”
He put out a hand and gripped Owen’s arm, helping him to his feet. “Let’s get back to the truck,” he said, slowly recovering. “Those spare overalls in the trunk oughta come in handy about now.”
“No kidding. We--”
The water beneath the motor boat suddenly began to slosh back and forth. They turned to see it churning into foam, as if the outboard was revving at full throttle, but the engine was silent and unmoving. In seconds the boat’s small white hull was thudding against the dock – first on one side, then the other.
“Jesus Christ,” Randy hissed, his good Catholic training slipping for once. “What now?”
He took one impulsive step forward and a wave of river water splashed upward, rising abruptly between the boat and the dock. Owen watched in mute disbelief as the wave stopped in mid-surge and stood in the air for a moment – just stood there, a frozen column of murky green pointing straight up out of t
he water. In moments it began to take another form, growing thinner at the top, splitting into separate spindles, growing thicker at the bottom, becoming a solid, stony black.
It was turning into an arm--a hand. And its fingers ...
He shouted a warning to his partner. “Randy! Look out!”
Randy turned, confused, as the thick fingers abruptly shot out and wrapped around his left leg. Owen saw it dig into the dripping denim, even into the flesh of his partner’s leg as Randy cried out.
It was trying to drag him back into the water.
Except it’s not water at all, Owen realized. Not anymore. It was almost dark now, and the shed’s pathetic lighting made it hard to see anything clearly, but that much was obvious: the water of the Amityville River was no longer water at all. It was some kind of thick ooze, with a sheen like oil sludge. And the smell lifting from it was suddenly, inexplicably beyond belief. It hit him like a wide, flat, invisible hand, so foul Owen had to fight to keep from throwing up.
“Get off!” Randy shouted, and reached out and grabbed hold of a main beam in the wall of the boatshed. “Let go!” He kicked at the solidifying muck as it dragged at him, as the motor boat still heaved and bucked in the ooze. His face was twisted into a painful grimace. “Jesus! What the hell is that god awful smell?”
Owen turned and looked frantically around the boathouse, fighting to keep his lunchtime sandwich in his stomach by sheer force of will. A weapon, he told himself. Anything. Anything to help.
The boat oar he had tried to pull down from the wall was still near at hand. Now he saw what the problem was: it was held in place by two small harnesses, leather strips and snaps. This time, as Randy yowled and kicked behind him, he got a better grip on the wooden shaft, set his feet, and jerked with all his might. The oar came loose in his hands with a metallic rip, and he wheeled it over his head and turned as he lifted it, acting without thinking.
The oily goo, thick as tar, stretched across the walkway less than a yard from the edge of his boots. He bellowed as he drove the working edge of the oar into the ooze, and as he hit it, it broke apart, as if he’d severed a limb. In that moment, the ebony arm with its crudely made fingers, the part that was curling around Randy’s boot, was separated from its source. For one moment Owen let himself grin. Got it, he said. GOT it!
Then both edges reached out to each other, overlapped, joined. It was whole again ... and still pulling Randy back, towards the roiling blackness under the boat.
“Oh, God!” Randy said, kicking and kicking, “Oh, God, it’s burning through my boot.” He wrapped his arms even more tightly around the beam and heaved at it, pulling with all his might to get away.
Owen whammed the oar down and cut through the ooze a second time. Once again, in less than a heartbeat, the two ends quickly rejoined, reformed as if they’d never been split.
Owen didn’t stop. He went at it again ... and again … and still again, slamming at it each time almost before it had time to reform.
Making progress, he realized after the tenth, maybe fifteenth blow. Each time it took the ooze a little longer to reform. Each time the gap got a little larger. Once more, he told himself, forcing his aching limbs to pull the oar up above his shoulders and driving it down again. Once. More.
On the twentieth impact, the impossible limb was weak enough, severed for long enough, that Randy, bellowing like a madman, was able to kick out and pull his leg free. He lunged back, staggering past Owen, and Owen instantly backed away with him, putting three, five, ten feet between them and the twitching ooze that was still flowing out of the river.
For one mad moment, it looked as if the oily tentacle was actually hesitating – thinking – considering its next more. Then, finally, it retreated, slithering away, slipping off the walkway and back into the black muck below the motor boat.
“Good,” Owen grated, thinking. But when is this going to end? When?
But the problem wasn’t over yet.
“Damn it to hell,” Randy said, almost weeping with frustration and pain. “This shit is eating through my boot.” Owen looked at the leg where the ooze had touched it, and saw a slimy trail running up and down the denim. Randy started to reach down for it with his thickly gloved hand, and Owen got one syllable into a warning before Randy yelped in pain and jerked his hand back. “Ah, shit!” he shouted, and hobbled back, farther into the shed. “Get it off, man! It burns like hell!” He plopped on to the deck, landing unceremoniously on his butt, and dragged frantically at the top of his boot.
“Don’t let it touch your skin!” Owen shouted. He let go of the oar and it thumped to the deck.
“Gotta get it off,” Randy said, gasping in pain. He was verging on hysteria. “Feels like it’s gonna burn right through my leg!”
Owen looked in every direction, and spotted a pair of heavy-duty work gloves dangling from a thick nail, next the harness that held the oars. He grabbed them and dragged them on over his soggy woolen mittens without another word, hurrying to Randy’s side.
The gloves did the trick, but only just. Randy took his hands away as Owen dragged on the heel of the wet boot. After two tries it slipped off. Moments later the gloves themselves began to smoke, giving off a stink almost as bad as the goop. In one smooth motion Owen slipped them off and hurled the gloves and boot together off the deck, into what had once been water from the Amityville River.
The gloves and boot, still smoking, plopped onto the ooze, but there was no splash. Both men watched as they bobbed on the surface for a long, long moment. Then the goop surrounding them rose up and swept over them like a greedy, fingerless hand, and dragged them down, out of sight.
As they watched in mute horror, the roiling, bubbling mass slowly settled. The swells subsided. The liquid under the boat changed color, moving from black to a murky green. Then, like a wave of stacked dominoes falling in a wide spread, the clear, normal water rippled outward, wiping away the last of the black sheen as it went. Within seconds, there was no sign the viscous liquid had ever been there.
Owen thudded down next to Randy, gasping for breath. “Did we get it all off?”
Randy dragged up his trouser leg and checked out his ankle and bare foot. There was an angry red welt running from the top of his shin, just below the knee, down to the edge of his toes. “Yeah,” Randy said between teeth clenched in pain. “Yeah, but it left a pretty nasty burn. Hurts like a bitch.” Owen was amazed to see a stiff, defiant grin on his partner’s face. “Still,” Randy said. “That’s nothing compared to what would have happened if I’d ended up in that black stuff.”
Neither man spoke for a long moment. Finally, still struggling to master the pain, Randy said, “I don’t suppose you have any idea what in Hades name that was?”
Owen shook his head. “Not a clue,” he said.
“Jesus, Owen,” Randy was back to his old self, all hint of his earlier nastiness gone. “Can this be really happening? What in God’s name have we gotten ourselves into here?”
Owen just shook his head. He was still trying to breathe, trying to fight off the deadly cold that was cutting through his soaking wet clothes. “All I know is I can’t take much more.”
“Me neither,” Randy said. There was no hint of his usual good humor. “We gotta get out of here soon or we never will.”
Owen got to his feet, still shivering, and put out a hand to his friend. “Can you walk?”
Randy pushed himself up, leaning against the wall for support. “I dunno,” he said. “Let’s see.”
CHAPTER SIX
Randy had trouble putting his full weight on the injured leg, so Owen grabbed the oar and had his partner use it as a crutch. Randy threw his other arm around Owen’s shoulders for more support.
Owen, as usual, kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t said anything about it – no point in worrying his buddy – but the burn looked serious. He was sure they would need to go to the Suffolk County Emergency Room as soon as they were out of here.
The numbing cold wasn’t h
elping any, either. Both men were still soaked to the skin, shivering openly, and the abrupt drop in temperature as the evening set in only made it worse.
Right now, Owen told himself, all that matters is getting out of here and getting some help.
They made their way slowly and carefully towards the boathouse door. There was no longer any confusion about their next move. They planned to leave 112 Ocean Avenue, as far behind them as they could, as soon as they could.
With Owen’s help, Randy shuffled along the planked walkway. They were almost to the door when a strange sound began to slowly trickle into the boathouse: a constant drone, like an approaching swarm of bees or wasps or ...
Randy heard it first. “What’s that noise, Owen?”
Owen had heard it before, at the porch window at the front of the house.
“I’m not sure, Randy,” he lied. He tried to nudge his partner along a little faster. “But I think we better get out of here before we find out.”
Randy responded to the urgency in his partner’s voice. He swung his wounded leg forward even harder, trying to move faster–
–then abruptly he stopped short.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” Owen couldn’t help but notice the drone was getting louder. The last thing he wanted was for them to stop, for any reason.
“The floor,” Randy said. He frowned as he stared at a particular spot on the wooden planks, midway between them and the door.
“What about it?”
“There was a deep gouge in the wood,” he said. “Right there, when we came in. Now it’s gone. And where the hell did the boathook go? I thought ...” He glanced left and right, suddenly confused.
“Randy,” Owen said, doing his best to be patient. “Is this important? I really think we need to hurry.”
Randy looked up and said “Wha--?” He glanced over his shoulder at Owen, then back at the door. “Damn it all to hell! How did that get back up there? It was stuck in the floor, man. I mean stuck. And now...”
Amityville Horror Christmas Page 5
