Black Water

A veil of curling mist hangs between the trees, obscuring the quiet moonlit road. Until it's pierced by a powerful metal beast charging through the dark!

Lumbering headfirst through the cold woods, this beast was transporting two bodies. One lurched over the steering wheel, bloodshot eyes fastened into his head! And the other... the other body laid quietly in the trunk of this car.

Between thick bundles of pines stands a Motel. It has separate log-cabin style rooms lined congruently near a deep pond. Rick exits his vehicle and enters the office to make his accommodations; room closest to the pond, and the car parked right beside the room.

The room is small; stuffed in stagnant air and reeking of cigarettes.

Rick would now have to patiently await the midnight hour...

Mist simmered atop the pond, leading it's trail all the way up to the night sky. It was a penetrating cold. Visible breath billowed out of Rick's chattering mouth. His chest pounding, his skin chaffing against his winter clothes. Every second Rick waited the worse he felt...

Grasping onto the body wrapped in black plastic, Rick hoists it over his shoulder and with great effort manages to keep balance as he shuts the trunk!

Step by step his body was in constant shock. First the agonizing force to move the body, then the wash of fear of anybody watching, then the ever mounting drain of exhaustion.

Finally nearing the edge of the pond, he carefully lays the body down and kicks it in... it drifts near the middle...

Then he tosses a large stone onto the body! Guiding it down to the bottom of the cold water.

Taking a quick glance all around, Rick is relieved to find nobody is watching.

He sighs, and makes a labored trek back to his cabin.

Golden warmth drapes Rick's shoulders as he passes through the door. He did it. He managed to get away with it...

But there was still a stress gripping his heart, so Rick grabs a bottle of bourbon and attempts to drown it out...

***

The following morning came in a bad mood. A heavy storm loomed overhead, it's turbulent winds battered the trees and thick rains flushed the road of people.

Morning hours came and went...

The afternoon had come to pass and only now does the culprit of last nights actions wake from his drunken stupor. He checks his cell-phone. He has multiple missed calls.

Calling back the number he waits for an answer...

"Hello?"

"Yeah baby, sorry. No. No it's all good just uh... drank too much."

"It's all good baby. I'll be in the city tomorrow night. Everything is quiet out here I think... I think I'll stay another night."

"No. No! It's not like that at all, trust me it's real quiet, no one suspects a thing. Just gonna sleep it off. Alright baby. I love you, you know that by now right? Haha. Talk to you later baby."

Hanging up the phone, Rick takes in his surroundings...

A dreadful, barren place, with black moss encroaching from the corner of the walls.

He supposes there isn't any harm in stepping away just for a moment to bring some supplies.

But driving away from the Motel, Rick felt odd. Like he had forgotten something...

It wasn't until he pulled up to the nearest liquor store that he notices he still has his wedding ring on. Rick takes it off his hand and slips it into his pocket.

An old croon-y tune plays over the speakers. The place stinks of fish.

As Rick purchases his items the cashier makes small talk:

"You new 'round here?" he asks.

"Just passing through." replies Rick.

"You doing any fishing?"

"Not tonight. But I used to come out here all the time till..."

"Till the misses comes 'round complainin' right? Haha" jokes the cashier.

"Well... she ain't complaining no more."

With that, Rick grabs his stuff and heads back to the Motel.

Rick's mind was racing now... perhaps a kind of delayed response to his actions but now he could only think of her... his wife.

He promised himself he'd never think of her again. Yet now, that wedding ring in his pocket stabbed at him, refusing to be forgotten!

A shrill pierce of shock clogs Rick's throat when the cabin comes into view!

Instictually he reaches to put his ring back on lest his wife catch him without his wedding band! But he snaps out of the anxiety and chuckles at his own jumping nerves.

Heavy rains shower the roof of his car, and through the gray haze, Rick meets the pond just as it was before. Malformed and insatiable. It gawked at him with it's gaping mouth. Looming there dangerously as though, if he reached any closer, it would find a way to swallow him up!

So to calm his nerves Rick begins partaking his supplies early. A large bottle of bourbon. He pops it open and takes a heavy swig. Then another. He pulls the wedding ring from his pocket and clutches it in hand.

Now the cold and wild air of the storm matched the man inside his car, shaking and shedding his tears, stammering over his breath! But no one could see through the haze of fog and glass. No one can see the guilt the man carried in his heart. For the only other person that could understand the lament for his wife, is several feet beneath the cold stoic waters...

Finally bringing himself back inside, Rick flicks on the television and attempts to find something to watch. Old movies is all the T.V. had to show. "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", "The Body Snatcher" and ultimately "Creature from the Black Lagoon".

He leaves it on and continues drinking, periodically glancing out the window.

Maybe a cold drink of water will help his shaky nerves.... He grabs a glass and going to the kitchenette sink, he pours water into the cup.

Black sludge oozed out of the faucet like puss in an infected wound! He drops the glass and watches it shatter on the floor!

His mind races... what? How!?

He thinks: maybe the pipes below ground have been broken and now the dirt and grime from beneath the earth have slipped into the water supply.

Yeah... that must be it...

Rick figures he's better off sticking to the booze and so he sits and attempts to relax. But the creature in the T.V. is starting to get to him. He turns off the Television. Leaning back on the chair, the labored wood creaks at his weight. The wind still howls at his window. Silent, cold and miserable sits the room. Rick continues drinking.

Before long the hazy gray afternoon, dimmed blacker and blacker. Now the night has once again tightened it's grip. Not a single soul had come out of their rooms. No car came charging down the highway road. Fear of any police, of any detective poking around, of any witness whatsoever had all gone away. Even now Rick almost wished they would come, so they could give refuge to the suffering of solitude. The torture of time slowly passing. But no one came.

To ease the pain, Rick dons his winter coat and once again steps out of his cabin.

Greeted by the bitter cold, he at first thinks to return back inside, but the grotesque mood indoors drives him away from his cabin and out further towards the pond. Mindlessly he approaches...

Where the night before he could barely bring himself near the water, he now finds himself irrisitably drawn. Like the beckoning of a lover.

He sits himself at the edge of the pond, bringing his knees in close to better maintain his warmth. He clutches tight to his bottle of bourbon. The howling wind had eased itself to a mere whisper. The rain had also stopped, yet the moisture in the air was thick enough to strain his breathing. Almost like drowning...

He felt himself beneath the waters. He felt as though it were himself wrapped in that black bag and callously drifted into the suffocating embrace of water... but it wasn't him. He had to remind himself why he did it. Remind himself that this wouldn't be the first time he felt so claustrophobic.

He reminded himself of the insufferable pecking his wife would give to him. The constant nagging. The never-ending paranoia of where he was really going and what he was actually doing.

"Going fishing." That was his excuse. A code-name given to his infidelity. It had been going on for quite a while. The kind of long while that shaves down the pain of insecurity, leaving the resentful spouse to drag out the pain boldly. It wasn't any kind of fear whether or not the secret would be divulged. The secret had it's time away from prying minds, but now it had thrown itself at the feet of any and all who would wonder about it for even just a moment. "Going fishing" is what he would say. He had never been fishing in his life.

He reaches into his pocket once more to remove what had irked him for what seemed like a lifetime. His wedding ring. It had an inscription on the inside of the band. "Till death do us part". It was her idea to have that written on. A token gesture in vain attempt to steady the waning confidence she had in the union. And he agreed to it.

Rick was now tightly grasping his wedding ring... he looks out into the center of the pond and tosses the ring in!

He waits a moment or two but finally sick of the cold, Rick gets up to return to the cabin. But as he gets up to his feet, he sees something in the pond just inches away... the ring.

He stared and wondered... his wedding ring? It should have sunk.

Almost angry now, he again grabs hold of the ring and tosses it in!

A tiny plummet of water showed the ring had really landed...

Then... a tiny glimmer shines from the pond. Again, it was the ring...

Rick couldn't believe what he was looking at. Couldn't understand it.

It glided effortlessly towards him... and then, finally, he sees what's holding it.

The slimey hand of dead cold flesh protrudes from the waters. Sea-weed and tattered plastic now as tightly wrapped around the body as the ruined clothes and pale bloated skin! The face obscured by grime and mud and blood and black plastic and soiled hair! But the face of his wife was as recognizable as any day before!

He staggers backwards! Clutching the bottle as though it would save his life! He throws it at the ghouls head! It shatters, ineffective to halt the lumbering dead!

The creature gasps at frigid air with no real attempt of breathing. It seemed more so that it attempted to call his name. A wife still attempting to reach her husband. And just like before, he fails to reciprocate. Fear has got it's grip on his heart! He breaks for the cabin door!

His stomping dash for shelter could barely maintain it's balance! Struggling at the cabin entrance, he only manages a final glance at this grotesque monster before finally getting through! Rick turns and shuts the door and locks it! A violent banging leaves him staggering backwards!

Rick slips on the spilled cup of black ooze! Flat on the seat of his pants, Rick kicks and gropes at empty air in an impotent attempt to raise himself from his panic! But the pounding at the door goes on and on!

But even louder is the pounding within Rick's heart! He knows who it is at his door, and he knows why! He deserves no remorse. Even he understands this now... and just as he gulps and accepts his fate... the pounding stops...

Rick looks all over but any sign of impending danger had ceased. Was it over? Had it finally gone away..? His answer came in the form of water. Black water oozing from between the cracks of the door! It pours in relentlessly... it pools at Rick's feet!

Rick attempts to avoid it by jumping on the bed, but the water never stopped! It came steadily... building on itself!

Hateful black sludge pooled beneath the bed. Soiling the linen, destroying the pillows and swallowing it's empty promise of intimate restfulness. It couldn't save him... the bitter cold water had risen to his knees!

Rick could do nothing more but shut his eyes! But even the black of his eyelids were soon succumbed to the darker black around him, swallowed, devoured, drowned!

***

The next morning had seen the stormy clouds part and drift away. The people of the Motel had finally come out of their shelter, only to be greeted by the whirling lights of police cruisers. Detectives soon arrive and take stock of their surroundings. The trail of grime leading from the pond to the cabin. The drying weeds, still hanging from the wooden door. And once opened... they see the rest of it.

Rick had been drowned in the middle of his cabin. Drenched in black water. The EMT's attempted a resuscitation, and black water was pumped out of his lungs. As well as his golden wedding band that was spit out onto his own chest. The ring has an enscription: "Till death do us part."