Submerging

Note:  If the formatting on this story looks weird and the line breaks are choppy, just expand your viewing window.  Please let me know if that doesn't work, but I like to double-space my stories and this is the only way I know how on this site.  Should be fine if you maximize the window.  Thanks!



         This is what you need.

         I heard the whisper in my sleep.  Surfacing from a dream with the lingering feeling of someone's presence, I

jerked awake and looked around.  The empty church was just as quiet as when I'd stumbled in, and there was no

sign of a caretaker.

         I glanced at my watch: 3:13AM. Not a damn thing would be open in that little town, not for hours, and I'd

only managed a couple hours of shut-eye.  It figures that the first quiet, warm spot I found in days would be too

eerie to rest in.

         What I needed was a good night's sleep for once, maybe in a bed somewhere instead of freezing my ass off

in the car or sneaking into weird buildings.  This old place probably wasn't even used anymore, everything was so

dusty.  All the bulletins near the door were from years ago, the statues were gone from the alcoves, and only a few

battered bibles remained in their slots.  Even the crucifix was missing from the wall.

         The only thing left was the architecture, all the high ceilings and exposed beams.  A few stained glass

windows caught light from the street outside, illuminating the eyes of angels and saints.  No wonder I was having

weird dreams.

         Better to move on, I thought, and pushed myself up.

         Something clattered onto the floor.  Thinking for some reason of my shades, I reached down to scoop them

back up, finding instead a smooth, flat square of plastic.  It was a cd case, clear and unlabeled, with a disc inside. 

Written on the cd in black marker was one word: DRIVE.  It wasn't mine.

         I glanced around again.  There was still no sound inside the vacant church, and all the corners were dark. 

Had someone been there?  Remembering the strange whisper on the edge of my dream, I felt my skin prickle.

         I pulled myself to my feet.

         "Hello?" I called.  "Is anyone here?"

         There was no answer.  My keychain light wouldn't be any help in so much darkness, so I slid into the aisle

and made for the door.  The car would be cold and cramped, but it was better than staying alone in the damn

creepy building.

         I almost - almost - left the cd right where I found it on that bench.  Why I took it I can't really say, except

maybe I knew it was for me.  I should have noticed it when I came in sat down, but somehow I hadn't and the

whispered words still slid around in my head.  This is what you need.  Was someone standing there, setting that

cd on my chest?

         I sure as hell needed something.  The lack of sleep was getting to me.

         When I got to the car and started it up, everything blasted at once: lights, radio, heat.  It was like being

shaken out of a dream.  I tossed the cd on the passenger seat with all the rest of the junk and pulled out of the lot.

         There had to be something open somewhere.

* * *

         Half an hour later, the tank was going on empty.  Only one gas station was open at the exit I took, so I

pulled up and turned off the car.

         I checked my wallet: $7.00 and three maxed-out credit cards.

         There was nothing for it.  I was really hitting the end.  Cutting through the brisk wind, I stepped into the

convenience store and dropped the crumpled bills on the counter.

         "Pump three," I said.

         The long-haired guy behind the counter nodded without looking up.

         "Look," I said, "can you do me a favor?"

         I took out my gun and leveled it.

         "Don't close the drawer.  Just give some twenties, okay?  Nice and easy."

         When he looked up, his eyes were fixed on the muzzle.  Slowly, he nodded.

         "Shit," he whispered, pulling a trembling fistful of green from the till, "don't shoot, man, please, man."

         I took the money in my left hand and stuffed it in my pocket, giving the kid what I hoped was a smile.  He

kept shaking.

         "Thanks," I said.  "I wouldn't normally do this, but I'm in a rough spot right now."

         He nodded and kept nodding.

         "I'd pay it back when I get where I'm going, but I guess I've got nowhere to go."

         Another distance down the highway, and my coffee from the gas station was almost gone.  He hadn't been

a bad kid, not really, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  With any luck, he'd taken my advice about not

calling the cops.

         The radio faded into static as the car clock hit 4:17AM.  I groped my pocket for my mp3 player, then

remembered I pawned it days ago.  My eye caught a glint from the cd case.

         "DRIVE" the label said.  It seemed appropriate enough, so I put it in.

At first, there wasn't any sound and I wondered if it was broken or blank.  Slowly, though, a soft hiss began to rise

through the silence, followed by a dim pulse.  The throbbing was barely audible but bone-deep, filling the car.  I

waited for the melody to come through, for lyrics, but the sound seemed to go on and on.

         I watched the road.  It flowed away from the towns, plunging unbroken into the trees.  Lines streamed white

and yellow, floating on the black tar river through the moonless night.  There were no other cars.

         Hiss and throb, the cd and the tires murmured.  There hadn't been signs for miles.  Sleep settled heavy on

my face and neck, pulling me down, reducing everything to the yellow headlight cone.  I forgot my hands on the

wheel.

         It started to rain.  Now the trees were gone, the road ahead collapsing into a narrow beam, the glass

running with water.  The wipers groaned across the glass, moving in time to the pulse, though I didn't remember

turning them on. 

         I was dreaming.  There was an ocean beside me, a cloud in my room.  Maryanne would wake me.  She

would smile -- but Maryanne was states away, in the house, in the bedroom alone.  Her heart was beating, on and

on, in the bed that was ours and now hers, and I was the one who was gone.  She was beating in my bones.

         The rain was harder.  I was driving.  I was in the car.

         But sweet murmurs filled the vaulted darkness of the church, and my father was there, growling my name,

wading through the shadows.  He was alive again, looming forward, pressing his knife to the side of my head until

tears fell heavy on the glass.

         No.  It was rain.  I was driving.

         But there was a swinging bench by the lake and we were sitting there.  Maryanne spoke, chanting through

her bloodied lips, her blackened eye, the bruises on her cheeks.  My hands clutched her throat, all wet and black

with blood.  Why? She asks me.  She keeps asking on and on.

         Then, something stops.

         I blink awake, staring through the rain, finding my hands on the wheel and the car slowing on an unmarked

street.  The tank was empty. 

         Where the hell was I?  I really needed some sleep.

         The cd was sticking out of the player.

         The digital clock read: 0:00.

         I tried to do the math: Seven bucks in gas should have covered more than seventy miles.  It had to be six

o'clock by now, but there was no sign of dawn.

         With the last of the car's momentum, I steered to the side and hit the four-ways.  There wasn't even a

shoulder; the highway must have faded into this country road a while back.

         I slugged the cold dregs of coffee and pulled up my hood.  Somehow, I had to find out where I was.

         It was a long walk before I reached anything.  The rain drove hard and constant, and my keychain light

couldn't do a damn thing.  I followed the pavement's edge, scanning for buildings or passing cars, but there seemed

to be nothing around.

         The ditches flanking the road rushed swollen with rainwater, holding me between them like black moats. 

Beyond, the landscape was impossible to see.

         When I saw lights ahead, I jogged forward, thinking there was an intersection or a cluster of houses. As I

got closer, I could see they were clustered straight ahead, flickering strangely through the rain.  Only the chill and

the ache of my bad knee convinced me I wasn't still dreaming.

         The asphalt of the road gave way into seamless stone as I came up to the lights, now seeing the

silhouettes of pavilions rising above.  I tried to make sense of it and failed.  Had I accidentally driven into a park?

         There were fire pits under the pavilion roofs, surrounded by a crowd of people all bundled up in hats and

coats.  They looked up at my approach.

         "Hey," I called. "Sorry, but I'm kinda lost..."

         One waved me over.

         "Welcome to the camps," she said.  Her face was dirty and her long, brown hair was soaked from the rain.

         "What? No, see, I'm just-"

         "Let me guess," she said, pushing her blue knit cap further up on her brow, "you listened to the stupid cd."

         I blinked at her.

         "What?  Are you kidding?"

         "Oh hell, no."  She smiled humorlessly at me.  "Not at all."

         "Then, I'm dreaming."

         "We wish."

         The people huddled nearest chuckled, eyes downcast.  All of them were filthy and damp, clustered around

their fires as if drinking the heat.

         "Look," the girl said, "you'll figure it out if you walk around.  Just don't fall."

         "Fall?"

         She gestured into the darkness.  "The caves," she said.  "That's where all the water goes."

         I opened my mouth to tell her this was crazy, but she put up a hand and shook her head.

         I walked through the crowd.  Hundreds of people crowded under the leaking roofs, most lost in their

thoughts.  Old men leaned against pillars, humming, and teenagers painted mud symbols on the concrete floors. 

People conversed in low murmurs under the sound of the rain.

         I saw makeshift houses at the edges of the light, in which couples and groups crouched, tending to each

other.  Some had canned goods from somewhere, and a few clutched old travel mugs.  Every now and then, one of

them nodded at me.

         Beyond the huts, where the light from the fire didn't reach, the hollow sound of falling water echoed up from

the dark.  I stood there in the freezing wind, staring down.  The rain, the flooded ditches, and any number of

streams channeled into these stone graves, filling them with thundering echoes.

         "What's down there?" I asked a nearby man.

         He looked at me through the tangled strands of his hair and shrugged.

         "Doesn't anybody know?"

         "No one comes back," he said.

         I tried to go back to the car.  No matter how many people warned me, I had to make the attempt, but it was

just as they said.  The road hadn't stayed where I left it, and no matter how many times I tried, there seemed to be

no path that would take me back.  When I complained it was impossible, the others only shook their heads sadly.

         It always rained.  The water poured endlessly from a black sky, carving through the landscape and plunging

into the earth.  We went in groups through the treacherous streams and into the forests, gathering wood for the

fires and pale white fruits.  The others told me their stories.

         "We all came here like you," they said.

         It wasn't the same empty church, but it was always the same whisper.  It was always the damned cd.  No

one talked about their pasts.

         I had nothing to tell them about mine.  In a place like that, I couldn't bring myself to lie, but if they knew

what I'd done, they'd cast me out.  I kept to myself, as all of them kept to themselves.

         Sunless days passed and passed.  I was one of them.

* * *

         Then, one dark hour among many, I walked through a cluster of men and stopped short.  There, some

distance away beside a dying fire, looking straight at me, was a little boy.  I'd never seen any kids in that place.

         He knew me.  His eyes were a mirror shade of blue.  Where had I seen this boy before?  His solemn look

was knowing, and as he unfolded himself to stand, I caught sight of the sharp red cut on his left temple.  Blood

flowed from it, and I instinctively reached up to my own face.

         I touched the smooth white scar there.

         The boy fled, dashing without a sound through the others.

         "Wait!" I yelled, and everyone looked at me.

         I pushed through them, struggling in his wake.

         "Wait!"

         A woman grabbed my arm.

         "Do you see a child?" she demanded.

         I wrenched away from her.  He was leaving me behind.

         "No!" a man shouted. "Someone stop him!"

         I thought they meant the boy, but their hands closed around me, the horrible wall of them, bearing me down

with united weight.  The boy was gone.

         "What the hell!" I tore my arm free and swung it to knock them aside, then tearing free to sprint.  My heart

pounded in a rhythm I had almost forgotten, the pulse of the music and the road.  The scar on my temple burned.

         I saw him then, darting between two houses and into the dark.  No one could stop me, their warnings

slipping off my back.  I knew him.  I had to save him.

         The boy glanced back only once, his eyes gleaming fear and knowledge into my own, then tumbled into the

underground.

         I jumped.

         I fell with the water through the echoing black, plunging into liquid cold.  It dragged me down and sucked the

warmth from my skin.  There was no light.

         Reaching forward, I tried to grasp him.  He was somewhere here with me.

         The water took us into the deep places, from which no other had returned.  I felt the heavy cold around us

and thought of Maryanne, of black blood on my knuckles, black blood on the kitchen floor.

         I thought of home.

         In the dark, I found the child and pulled him in, wrapped him in my arms.  I let him cry as we flowed into the

heart of the earth, remembering everything.  Before words dissolved completely and I forgot the sound of speech, I

pressed him to my chest and whispered,

         "This is what you need."


(Word Count: 2425)