Water Rites

by Guy N Smith

  “No, we’ve heard nothing, I’ll let you know as soon as we do.”

  Kate leaned up against the wall, she looked as if she might faint. “There won’t be a call because nobody will be searching again until daylight.”

  “It’s impossible out there,” he found himself listening to the rain on the window. The forecast was that the area of low pressure was deepening, there was a second one close on its tail out in the Atlantic. Flood warnings; the gales would return overnight.

  “He’s out there somewhere,” her voice was a whisper.

  Phil didn’t answer, the last thing she needed was for somebody to agree with her.

  “Out there in this,” her expression changed, anger infiltrated her hopelessness. “All alone. Dead or alive, he’s out there in the woods. We can’t just leave him there, Phil.”

  “We’ve done everything we can.” It sounded trite, a self-exoneration. Smug satisfaction.

  “Have we?” Her tone was accusing, he wilted before her gaze.

  “I’m still trying to think of something, somewhere Peter might’ve gone that we haven’t thought of. Maybe he’s got shut in somewhere …”

  “Like a dog or a cat,” she was scathing. “You’re as bad as the rest of them, looking for excuses. Stalling, putting off the inevitable. I know where he is, Phil.”

  He stared at her, she had flipped and it wasn’t any wonder.

  “He’s up there,” she inclined her head, her red-rimmed eyes were done with crying because there weren’t any tears left, “in that bloody reservoir. With that fish woman. I know, because I saw her trying to drag him through that hole in the wall down into her foul lair.”

  Christ, you’re crazy, I’d better try to get the doctor up here, you should have been sedated hours ago. No woman can stand …

  “You think I’m crazy,” she didn’t laugh, her voice was almost normal. “Yes, I saw her. I thought it was a dream, I hoped it was. But Peter had sneaked off into the wood again while I was asleep in the deckchair. Or rather, his soul had. In some strange way my astral body followed him, a mother’s instinct that her child is in danger. Just like I know he is now if he isn’t already dead. I got him away from her, we both woke up on the lawn, maybe Peter thought it was a dream, too. But it wasn’t. That creature up there, that witch, she meant to have him, Phil. And now she’s got him!”

  He was visibly shaken, he told her about the ring, how he’d found it, returned it to Mukasa, for that was the inscription on the ring and he presumed it was her name; that Mrs Jackson had said that Mukasa was some kind of water goddess. But Mukasa hadn’t taken her ring back, perhaps she couldn’t find it. Detective Inspector Barr had picked it up on his previous visit, that was maybe the reason he had returned last night.

  And where was Barr right now? Why hadn’t he returned the reservoir keys? Surely he would have come back when it was known that Peter was missing, even if he was off duty.

  “It all figures,” Kate seemed to pull herself together, suddenly there was a new determination about her. “That witch has not only got Peter, but she’s taken Barr, too, because he trespassed in her domain, maybe discovered something that she couldn’t afford to let the outside world know.”

  “I’d better try to get hold of Inspector Barr.”

  “You’re wasting your time, as well as valuable time that could mean the difference between life or death for Peter, if it isn’t already too late. Barr won’t come back, you can bet on that. But we have to go up there and look inside that reservoir. Christ, Phil, that’s the one place that nobody’s bothered to look. Just because it’s locked, they presume that our son can’t possibly be in there.”

  “I don’t have a key,” he spread his hands hopelessly. “Barr’s got them, wherever he is.”

  “Then we’d better break the door down.”

  “With what, it’s a heavy duty …”

  “There’s a pickaxe been propped up against one of the filter beds ever since those workmen finished putting in a land drain. It’ll do.” She turned to the row of coat hooks, reached down her Barbour thornproof.

  “Kate, you don’t realize …”

  “You don’t have to come with me,” there was contempt in her expression. “I can find that pickaxe, I’ll break down the door myself. Now, all I need is your rechargeable torch …”

  “All right, we’ll go,” he reached for his stormproof jacket, it was still damp and stiff from a soaking earlier in the day.

  Things added up but you still had difficulty believing them. In the end you believed them because there was no believable alternative.

  She had the door open, there was maybe an inch of water covering the sunken blue brick patio right in the way to the yard gate. Beyond it they could hear the torrent where the water coming down from the wood rushed on its way to the road.

  The night was murky, the beam of the powerful light was thrown back at them; a mistiness now that there was no wind to disperse it.

  The absence of traffic on the nearby road created a sense of desolation. If you needed help, they wouldn’t be able to get to you. Even the helicopter was grounded until daylight.

  Kate clicked the gate latch, half turned back in a listening posture. “The phone …”

  It wasn’t the phone, or if it had been, it wasn’t ringing now. Maybe there was a cable fault suddenly because of the flooding.

  Kate pulled the gate wide. The phone wouldn’t be any help now, anyway, because nobody would have any news of Peter. They couldn’t possibly have because he was up there in the reservoir.

  There was no other place he could be.

  Twenty-eight

  A large section of the reservoir roof had collapsed, chunks of concrete and steel girders crashing into the water, creating a miniature tidal wave.

  The water churned, Shannon was helpless against its force, hurled one way, then another. Miraculously, he wasn’t battered against the sides, debris avalanched all around him but it was as if he bore a charmed life.

  There was total blackness, water rushed and pounded, he had the feeling that he might be swept away with the torrent on a River Styx, borne down to the bowels of hell. He had no choice other than to await his fate.

  Then, gradually, that soft eerie glow returned, enough for him to be able to discern shapes, silhouettes. A girder was propped up at a crazy angle, it had to be resting against one of the walls; a body, all he could make out was that it was female, long hair that could only belong to Sheila, trailing like seaweed as she floated.

  Another was trapped beneath a pile of rubble. Legs and arms were splayed as if whoever it was still lived and was struggling to free themself. Female again. Debbie or Lisa, it didn’t matter which. Doubtless the features were unrecognizable, the head crushed to pulp beneath the roof fall. Even had there still been life in the body, Shannon would not have offered assistance. They had planned to kill him, death must be their punishment, every one of them.

  Shannon started when he saw Stogie. The other stood upright, swayed on his feet, arms raised in a threatening gesture, his thick lips drawn back to bare his nicotine-stained teeth in a bestial snarl.

  Eyes that saw and hated the one whom he blamed for their destruction and the desecration of this shrine of evil.

  Shannon tried to back away but the strength of the current pushed him forward. Somehow Stogie had survived, had undergone the Change and was now a repulsive subhuman species, a predator of the deep.

  Shannon grabbed the arm that struck at him, felt its unbelievable strength as it forced him backwards; Stogie’s skin was slippery, it was impossible to maintain a hold. The slime-coated flesh would soon form scales and then the regression would be complete.

  Face-to-face in unarmed combat, their features masks of malevolence; victory, itself, would not be sufficient, death as they knew it was impossible for both had stepped beyond mortal barriers.

  Stogie had all the advantages; he was only half the age of the one who for so long had been his master and tyrant; his viole
nt upbringing stood him in good stead. There were no rules to be observed, no honour. No prize for the victor. Only the loser; annihilation, the body mutilated to pulp so that it was no use to either mortal or the living dead.

  A bite from those blackened teeth closed on Shannon’s slippery grip, had him relinquishing his precarious hold, mouthing a shout of pain. A kick took him in the groin, bent him double.

  Dazed, he warded off a downward chop with his injured hand, experienced agony that could only have come from a broken bone.

  Guts balling, he fought one-handed, defensive measures against kicks and punches, clawing nails. But he was tiring. He stumbled, lost his footing, fell onto his hands and knees. Head bowed, eyes closed, his strength had ebbed. He braced himself, awaited the coup de grâce.

  Stogie’s foot kicked against a chunk of rock, he stooped to pick it up, moved in for the kill. His eyes filmed, he savoured a mental image of the high priest’s skull; matter oozing from out of the splintered bone, stringing through the water like spring frogspawn. Blood; like red wine spritzer as it diluted, turning the water pink.

  Stogie was merciless and Shannon was at his mercy. Stogie strained to lift the concrete above his head, held it there, almost overbalanced beneath its weight. Still he gloated for the deed might prove to be an anticlimax, it would be over in seconds.

  Shannon was pleading to be spared; Stogie was in no hurry.

  That proved to be his downfall.

  Something struck the surface above, the impact creating yet another turbulence; the levels gauge, riveted to an upright steel stanchion that had fallen with it, sixteen metres in height and weighing half a ton, had become loosened with the vibrations and the pounding of the water.

  Stogie’s squat head disintegrated instantly, pulped in the same way in which he had envisaged crushing that of his adversary.

  Decapitated.

  A headless creature of the deep was held upright by the pressure of the swirling water, the jagged lump of concrete falling from his raised arms, seemed to float down to the floor. The empty hands appeared to wave in rage and frustration, a beheaded rooster whose nerves still controlled its body movements.

  Instead of Shannon’s blood, it was Stogie’s that discoloured the water. He turned slowly as if walking away, humbled in defeat. A couple of bizarre steps and then he crumpled, sank down and lay still.

  Shannon forced himself upright, gasped his surprise as his head broke the choppy surface. Instinctively, he drew breath.

  And reeled from a sensation of suffocation.

  Changed to exist below water, air was not conducive to his adapted lungs.

  A fit of dizziness blurred his vision but it failed to hide from his frightened eyes the sight of the water witch upon the steps above, holding her adopted son and heir.

  Her gaze was fixed upon him as if she had been expecting his reappearance, had perhaps even commanded him to surface before her. A goddess angered by her disciple. So evil. The beauty which had once been hers was lost beneath a veneer of malevolence. In a way, she reminded him of Stogie, the bared teeth and the hate-filled eyes. A hag ageing before her time.

  The boy rested against her, appeared to be asleep, oblivious of all that had happened. From somewhere close by came a gurgling sound as the outlet pipe sucked greedily, thirstily; perhaps it, too, was angry because the water had burst out of its confinement.

  Water still flowed in through the hole in the remaining section of wall but the level was dropping fast; it gushed out faster than it filled, was now only just above Shannon’s waist.

  Something brushed against his thigh, instinctively he shied from it; a lifeless hand making one final futile assault upon the one whose treachery and obsession with the powers of darkness had destroyed the followers of the People of the Water.

  Stogie’s corpse bobbed, floated away. Death was only a transition period, a time of waiting. Eventually, he would be reborn.

  “The Floods have begun,” Mukasa bore no resemblance to the life form which she had inhabited prior to the Change. Barbara Jackson was gone as surely as if she had never existed.

  Shannon trembled. Even now that his own regression had come about, he did not doubt her power to destroy him.

  “Before long all the land will be gone, the oceans will reclaim that which is rightfully theirs!” Her shriek echoed in the fast draining underground chamber. “I have my son, another will be born to me soon.” Her scaly abdomen seemed to throb in the greenish glow which emanated from her. “Those who sought eternal life for power alone shall be destroyed!”

  The ring glinted on her finger, seemed to mock him. She stroked the child lovingly.

  “But I, too, have Changed!” He tried to summon defiance amidst his terror. “I have achieved immortality, I am one of the People of the Water.”

  “No, you are too late. You are neither land creature nor water dweller. See how you gasp for air, struggle to breathe. Beneath the water, you will drown. Above it, you will suffocate. You are neither one form nor the other. You are trapped in mid-change!”

  It was true. Shannon sank to his knees, submerged his head. After a few seconds, he surfaced for air. But he was unable to fill his lungs, his vision began to darken, streaked with crimson.

  The creature on the steps was now a blurred, shimmering outline, a luminous fish shape that cradled her sleeping child to her, crooned over it.

  Stogie returned like an alligator pretending to be a half-submerged log, entwined a dead arm around Shannon’s legs, defied the other’s weakening efforts to kick it away. Clutching fingers locked, pulled with the current.

  Come on down into the water which you worshipped in life, Royston Shannon.

  A shriek that might have been the storm howling in through the gaping roof. Or it could have Mukasa’s cry of triumph at her Coming.

  Shannon tottered, lost his balance, fell headlong with a splash. Stogie rolled, surfaced on top of him, bore him down and pinned him to the floor. Headless, yet the corpse body pulsed with life, a burden that had the weight of an octopus and the strength of its tentacles.

  Shannon’s struggles grew still weaker, his once noble features were bloated, mutely pleading with his deity and her living-dead servant for mercy and forgiveness.

  Mukasa moved, a slithering that took her back up the wide steps, holding her child tightly in case he should wriggle from her slippery hold, fall back into the water and drown. She paused to check his skin texture, frowned. He was not Changing as she would have wished.

  And that was, indeed, cause for concern.

  Twenty-nine

  “It’s coming in through the back door!” Jocelyn Jackson shrieked her alarm, found a mop and bucket in the cupboard, and began to swab at the encroaching trickle of water. Within seconds the seepage had become a steady flow. “Barry, where are you? Go get that pile of newspapers, anything to soak up the water.”

  There was no reply. He was a lazy bugger, she muttered angrily beneath her breath, all he wanted to do these days was to write his silly stories which nobody would ever publish, anyway. Senile fantasies.

  She squeezed out the mop again. She was definitely fighting a losing battle, before long the kitchen would be flooded, then the water would seep through into the hallway; that new carpet would be ruined. The insurance would pay out, no problem there, but no woman liked to stand by and watch her Axminster being ruined.

  It was all Barbara’s fault. If she had been here, between the two of them they could have kept the water at bay. Barry wouldn’t be any use, not even if he showed up.

  Something smelled bad, Jocelyn sniffed the air, almost retched. It was the water, it smelled just like it had that day when she had gone into the reservoir with Mister Quiles. It was polluted, not fit to drink, she made up her mind to write to the authority about it, her Member of Parliament if that didn’t do any good.

  She stared at the encroaching, spreading pool inside the door. It was a strange colour. It had a greenish hue, muck and slime and some of that moss
that grew on the patio outside that Barry had been too idle to clear. God, it stank!

  Where the hell was Barry? She gave up calling for him, wasting her breath. She’d mop this lot up on her own.

  At that moment the lights went out, plunged the house into darkness. They had been threatening to go off for the past hour, flickering. Once they had extinguished, come back on again within a few seconds. She knew that this time it was for real. A sort of dead feeling, a permanency about the blackness.

  “Damnation! Bar … ry!” Jocelyn tried to find the bucket to squeeze her mop again, missed. It sounded like a fish flopping on the wet floor. The power was bound to fail, no way would it have survived the night in such atrocious conditions. There was probably a fault with the main transformer and it would take the emergency engineers hours to fix it. And they’d stop work for their tea breaks, too, like there wasn’t any hurry. Folks died during power failures for a lot of reasons and burglars capitalized on them. Jocelyn had a phobia about break-ins, there had been several in the village in recent months. It was eerie just thinking about intruders in your house. She shuddered.

  “A damned good job I put some candles ready,” she talked aloud to herself as she groped her way across to the scrubbed pine table. A matchbox rattled to her touch. She scraped one, even the tiny flame was comforting.

  The wick caught, spread a soft golden glow as it burned up; flickered and created shadows.

  Jocelyn goose bumped. She had never liked the dark, right from childhood, but she had kept her fear to herself. Barbara hadn’t liked it, either, when she was small, but her mother had insisted that she sleep in an unlit room. Night lights and candles cost money, they also started fires if they tipped over.

  Barbara had screamed her terror more than once in the dead of night but Jocelyn hadn’t gone to comfort her daughter. That was only pandering to childish fears. There were times when one had to be cruel in order to be kind. Eventually, Barbara had outgrown her fear. At least, Jocelyn thought she had.