His Horror In The Waves

She was out there in the water. Every rational spark in his brain reminded him that there was nothing out there in the sea, yet the chill in his spine remained. He’d seen her face peaking over the choppy waves left behind by the cruise ship; seen her tangled mess of blackened hair, and those vacant green eyes locking onto his own.

He had seen her. She had seen him. But there was no ‘her’ left to be staring back at him after all.

“Stop sulking, buddy!” A cold beer was shoved into Kyle’s hand. An arm wrapped around his shoulder as his friend leaned his drunken weight onto him. His fraternity brother stared off into the open sea that now held nothing but broken waves. “See a mermaid or something?”

Giving the beer a hearty chug, he broke his gaze from the sea and the face that had been haunting him. “Ya, mermaid.”

“Bullshit!” A third voice broke into the conversation as an even drunker member of the party James, raised his beer from his place on the lounge chair. James’s girlfriend shifted in their shared lounge seat to avoid the beer being flung about. “Mermaids are bullshit. They’re like just sea lions or something.”

“Nah,” Thomas waved off the rational explanation, “my cousin saw a mermaid once. Swear to fucking God! He works on an oil rig, and he saw a bunch of them out there. Said they were like super-hot. Biggest tits he’d ever seen.”

Thomas started making cupping motions at his chest, wiggling his eyebrows at the nameless red headed girl who’d come back from the bar with him. He stumbled forward, sloppily kissing her neck, earning an array of giggles from the clearly drunk women.

Beer was being spilled all over the deck, some of it landing on James’s girlfriend, who gave a screech of displeasure as it stained her bikini top. “Your girlfriend aware you’re making out with random drunk girls?”

The random redhead’s friends came rushing over, extremely displeased about the group of drunk men who she’d ended up wandering away with. They muttered stern words at her, before leading her across the ship’s deck and away from the group, but not before glaring daggers at them.

Thomas gave a whine as the focus of his attention was removed, “if she didn’t want me kissing up on girls she would have come along with us.”

The trio descended into a series of bickering that even his beer couldn’t rid his annoyance of. Their argument was far louder than the music that never stopped blaring. “Will you guys shut the fuck up!”

Thomas’s face grew dark at the outburst. “Hey, don’t be pissed at us because your girlfriend ran off without you.”

It was a low blow; even lower of a one than the other three really knew.

James’s girlfriend stood up, dragging him with her, “Grow some balls and get over it. Find some drunk girl to bang and stop moping about. I’m not having my trip ruined because of you.”

With that, she pulled James off into the cruise ship. Thomas muttered about having to spend his vacation with relationship drama, before heading to find a bar and searching for another girl to spend the night with.

Kyle held the empty beer bottle in his hand, letting it dangle over the railing of the ship as he leaned his weight onto his crossed arms. The party at his back was in full swing; the college seniors tearing their way across the deck as the alcohol was free flowing. This was an escape he had desperately needed; yet even miles away from shore, the nagging college discipline committee, and the police nipping at his heels as his father’s lawyers battered them away, he could not find himself drifting into the depravity that the cruise supplied.

The ocean waves continued to press against the hull of the ship. A couple to the left of him were pointing and exclaiming about the nearby sharks who seemed to be circling something. There was nothing else to be seen in the waves.

He could still feel those blank eyes searing through him.

“Hey, handsome. You here alone?” She was pretty enough; long blonde hair, thinly built, strawberry printed bikini covering very little of her well-built body, nose a little too big for her face. Her hand slithered across the railing towards his own. It didn’t take long in their conversation before her lips were on his, and he was leading her to his suite.

Thankfully the others were still out when he fiddled with the locks to their room. She made quick work of his trunks, sliding them off before yanking her own bathing suit away from her body. She had him on the bed within seconds. He had himself inside of her a few seconds after.

“Kyle….” the whisper licked against his ears.

He buckled, slamming himself forward. The girl gave a heavy moan of appreciation as fear coursed through him. The room was silent, with only the faint beat of music and the waves echoing against the wall. After another moment, he resumed his movements.

“…. Kyle …”

There it was again. It was unmistakably her voice. There was a broken gargling tone to it, like someone speaking through water, or trying to speak through a blocked windpipe. A finger trailed around the side of his neck, before the feeling dissipated. Despite the fact that they had one of the upper deck rooms, the waves beat against the porthole window. The water lashed against the glass, leaving trails of foam between the assaults.

A hand slammed against the window. It dragged away slowly as the waves outside calmed.

“What the fuck!” Kyle tightened his fists as fear spiked its way down his spine.

“Hey, let go!” The girl raised her hands up, trying to push him off as his white knuckled grip tightened around her breast and throat. Her fingers clawed down his chest, long overgrown nails digging rivets into his flesh. There was a slickness of seaweed to her skin as she fought to pry herself from under him.

Matted black hair was sprawled across the pillow, framing the sunken gray flesh of her skull. The naked body between his legs was no longer that of tanned skin, but a bloated putrid smelling mess of bruises and boils. Maggots crawled their way through the ripped skin. Her hand reached out with blackened fingers falling to pieces as they weakly pushed against his chest.

Her eyes were full of fear; dark green orbs begging for him to let her go. Her cracked lips split apart, showing a mouth full of displaced teeth. Mucky water bubbled from her throat as she failed to make her pleads heard.

His hands were on her throat. It was too familiar.

He could feel his fingers pressing against the water bloated skin, sinking through the ruined flesh and crushing what remained of her windpipe. There was a rush of waves pouring from the open wounds he’d made on her throat. The water was cold, biting against his flesh as the bloated corpse beneath him struggled to find air.

“…. ple… please…” she was crying, her saltwater tears flowing down her face, “… please…”

He threw himself off the bed and Samantha’s decaying corpse. Scrambling away as quickly as he could, he grabbed a discarded bottle and held it before him like it would stop her. She laid in the bed, gurgling even more as she reached a crumbling hand towards him. Her hand dropped. Her eyes went blank.

The same green eyes that had peered at him from the waves, continued to taunt him now.

A rank smell grew through the suite, as the body on the bed continued to lay there. The blankets were growing damp and stained as her body began to leak out a mess of water and bodily ooze. Her hand dangled against the side of the bed, flesh dripping off in blackened ribbons. There was a growing dark bruise against her neck in the shape of his handprint.

“Please,” he pleaded; his begging being heard just as little as hers had that night.

“Please,” he cried; hoping for a mercy that he had not granted her.

“Please,” he tried once more, as those eyes continued to bore into him; a reminder of all that he had gotten away with.

The air in the suite cleared as the door was thrown open. The bed was once more made, its blankets cleaned of the stains. The blonde girl who he’d brought back to this room was gone. Samantha was gone.

Thomas had found another drunk girl to bring back to their suite. She was hanging off his arm, snorting something off a plastic wrapper being given to her. The pair looked at Kyle who was huddled in the furthest corner of the room.

“Your friend alright?”

Thomas glanced between the girl on his arm, and his friend who looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “You good man? Was hoping to use the room, you know?”

He stumbled through his words, staring wildly at the empty bed before him. The port window was left empty of waves, as the ocean calmed itself. He couldn’t explain himself, so he chose not to. Scrambling to his feet, Kyle pushed his way out of the room. The pair left behind didn’t bother chasing after him as they closed the door.

It had grown dark. There was nothing but near black skies and equally dark waters surrounding the ship. There were so many lights to brighten the cruise ship, but everything just seemed too dark. He pushed passed a game of limbo starting, slammed against a waiter offering cocktails, and ripped off the flower necklaces someone threw around his neck.

There wasn’t anywhere to go on this ship that made him feel as if the ocean wasn’t ripping its way down his throat. He found himself once more at the outer railing. His knuckles threatened to split with how tightly he was gripping the metal poles.

She was there again; long black hair, startling green eyes, and her off colored face greeted him from the rolling waves. Despite how far away she was, he could see her as if she was right before him. A wide smile gripped her cracked lips, the flesh of her face shifting as it distorted her ruined flesh. She raised a hand, cocking a decaying finger at him, encouraging him to join her watery grave.

“This isn’t… you’re not…”

Yet she was. He had left her in the waters, but that had been miles away in a dirty river not too far off from campus. As far as he could know, she was still there in that river with a rope around her neck, and a bag of bricks dragging her down. She couldn’t be here, off in the middle of the ocean far from the Florida coast.

“It wasn’t my fault.” He had tried that same reasoning when he’d stared down at her battered corpse for the first time. He’d been drunk. He’d been high. She hadn’t undone her bra fast enough for him. She’d tried to push him off that night. She’d screamed. It hadn’t been intentional, just an accident.

“…Kyle…” her voice was like the wind dancing across the water’s surface. Her beckoning fingers was drawing him close. “Come… my… love…”

“…. Jump …. Jump … Join me.”

His feet moved on their own. Someone behind him must have noticed the man climbing the ships railing, but they never would have stopped him. Water was already bubbling in the base of his throat, before he even toppled over the side of the ship.

His body crashed against the surface, sinking instantly as the waves tossed him about.

The trance over him dispelled as the ocean waves grabbed against his throat. Fire burned through his body as the sea poured inside of him. He gripped at the flesh of his neck, desperate to tear the water free of his lungs. Nothing he could do would take away the fear and pain that was overtaking him.

A comforting shushing graced his ears. The rotting hand that laced through his hair was soft despite the tattered flesh and jagged bones that crunched with each flex. The engagement ring on her finger was like a taunt to both of them. There was a beauty to the pale green and wrinkled face that was before him; but then again, Samantha had always been so beautiful.

Her long black hair wrapped like weeds around them. She was still wearing that same dress from that night at the party, the lace at her shoulders ripped like wounds, and the material having hung around her legs like a net. The handprint around her neck was a molting mess of black.

She trailed her hand down his face, dragging a finger across his throat. Pain beyond what he could imagine burned its way through his body. He could feel his throat growing tighter and tighter as even more water threatened to tear him apart. The darkness of the ocean around him grew closer and closer till it surround them completely.

Samantha looked pleased with the catch before her. There was no sympathy in her eyes, he didn’t deserve it. He had never deserved her sympathy, her time, her love, or her care. The waves calmed as the ship he’d just thrown himself off of continued through the sea like nothing had happened.