Claire's Story

Claire liked to come back to the spot where it had happened. At least once a week she’d climb into her new Volkswagen beetle and traverse the winding roads that led to the beach where Michael had drowned.

She parked in the lot that faced the beach, which was mostly vacant that late in the season. She took off her shoes and tossed them into the backseat of her car, making the short trek down the sandy embankment and towards the water. The early autumn breeze licked at her neck, and she was grateful for the sweater she wore.

Down the beach she could hear the sound of children laughing and screaming, and against the cloudy sky a red kite bobbed and dove in the wind.

Claire took a few steps into the water, the tide low enough that it barely reached her ankles. The water was cool as it washed over her feet, and she shivered, loving the feel of it. She inhaled deeply, shading her eyes as the sun peaked out from the clouds overhead.

Staring out at the vacant gray landscape of the sea, she recalled the last time she and Michael had come to this spot. The last time she’d seen him alive.

“Has it already been four months?” She murmured, not feeling any real sort of emotion about it as she tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her hands.

She could have saved him, could have called out for help. There were enough people around that she could have alerted someone, anyone to the fact that Michael was in the water halfway between the buoy and the shore.

Instead she’d sat frozen on her beach towel, watching him wave his arms overhead as he bobbed up and down in the water, clearly struggling to stay afloat.

It was his own damn fault, she told herself. He thought he could swim to the buoy and back. But he was wrong. So very wrong.

Claire hadn’t planned it. She never imagined herself to be the kind of wife who would want her husband dead. But when the opportunity presented itself, in those fleeting moments when she saw him struggling against the unrelenting sea, she held all the power.

He wasn’t a bad husband. He never hit her, never cheated. They actually got along well, always able to laugh and talk like old friends. They knew each other better than anyone. Nine years of marriage would do that.

No, what had driven her to ignore her husband’s plea for help had been the draw of one simple thing. The most powerful motivator, the thing that would make even a happily married woman like her turn on her husband. Money. And Michael was a very wealthy man.

She did feel guilty about it sometimes, though–she wasn’t a monster after all. And the nightmares she’d have, the ones where Michael was reaching out to her from a sea of inky darkness? Well she figured that was her punishment and she would just have to live with it.

“What’s done is done,” Claire sighed. She didn’t like the turn that her thoughts had taken. “I can’t dwell on this anymore. But Michael–I do miss you sometimes.”

She turned to leave, and that’s when she realized she couldn’t move. Her feet were glued where she stood in the sand, the water around her ankles seeming to tighten as though hands were holding onto her.

“What–”

Before she could speak another word she was yanked off her feet, landing on her back in the sand. She bit down on her tongue, the metallic taste of her own blood filling her mouth. She opened her mouth to scream but water enveloped her, swallowing her up. She could still feel the vise-like pressure on her ankles as she was pulled towards the water, her sweater rolling up her back as the sand bit into her exposed skin. She kicked her legs, trying to sit up, to get her head above water.

Claire coughed and gasped, her mouth and nose on fire. Her eyes burned from the salt water and she could barely make out her surroundings, but what she could see was a pair of pale gnarled hands wrapped around each of her ankles, reaching up from the sand.

“HELP!” She managed to scream. “Someone please, he–”

She was ripped forward then, the sound of the waves and the seagulls above muffling her final scream as she inhaled one great gulp of air before being dragged below the surface.

She felt a heavy, rich sort of sweetness overtake her body as she was pulled down, down, into the depths and away from the surface until the blinking sunlight that cut through the water looked like nothing more than a pinprick in the blackness above her. Her chest burned as she held onto the breath in her lungs, letting it escape from between her lips bit by bit, the pain of holding it in becoming unbearable. The pressure in her ears built until she was sure her head would burst, and she began to twist and kick towards that small dot of hope above her, winking at her like a lonely star. Beckoning.

There were arms around her waist–not pulling, not clawing, not even squeezing. Yet when she looked down, when she pushed at her waist in an effort to escape whoever, or whatever, had a hold on her, there was nothing there. But she could feel them, feel the arms ensnaring her and holding her in place, doing nothing more than holding her still as some invisible force slowly pulled her down, down, down.

Claire continued her struggle against the phantom limbs and their unforgiving hold, just as the last bit of air that she had been clinging to so desperately left her lungs in a gentle gurgle of small glittering orbs. She watched them drift upwards, towards the sky and the birds, to where her car sat still parked alone in the lot, to the children down the beach flying their kites.

As the first bit of water drifted into her nose, the flame in her chest twisting her insides and her heartbeat loud in her ears, exhaustion consumed her. She knew what this was, knew that this was punishment for what she had done to Michael.

Reflexively, though she tried to fight it, her lips parted and she inhaled, no more than a sip of salty water and it was in her throat and blasting through her chest. Her whole body twitched and writhed in the water as she struggled against the onslaught of unforgiving sea, the arms around her a strange comfort as she continued her descent into the darkness.

Down, down, down, she drifted. In the last seconds before her world went dark, before her vacant eyes took in nothing but the inky depths, the invisible force that had been so unrelenting became flesh. It was Michael, now nothing more than a rotting, bloated grey pulp of flesh and exposed bone like that which had tormented her nightmares.

Claire would spend eternity looking into that face, looking into the gaping hole of his mouth and the sallow flesh which hung loosely beneath empty eye sockets.

It was just as Michael had promised Claire in their wedding vows–he’d always be with her. He was nothing without her, and he’d stay by her side no matter what. Forever.