The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(73)

“I don’t wanna, Daddy!”

“Okay, you can keep the dress on,” Wayne said, guessing that agreeing to her request would get her in the water. “When do you ever get to swim at night in your clothes, right?” he asked, unable to hide how truly hopeful he was. Tonight might change everything.

“You’re a goofus,” Ruby said.

Wayne laughed, a little louder than he’d intended. “I am, baby. I sure am.” He took her hand and they took a few steps toward the spring, placing their feet into the shallow water along the bank.

“It feels nice,” Ruby said.

“I think so too,” Wayne said, already imagining the water working its miracles.

In his overexcitement, he took a few more quick steps to go deeper.

“Daddy, slow down!” Ruby yelled. “Owww!” She’d clipped her heel on a rock. “I hurt my foot!”

“Shit!” Wayne said, a rare moment when he was unable to catch the swear before it left his mouth.

“Bad word, Daddy!” Ruby said, as Wayne lifted her foot out of the water, the moon illuminating a thin stream of blood.

“You’re right, Rubes. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about your foot, baby. That was my fault.”

“It’s okay.” Ruby had grown so used to little cuts like this that she rarely cried over them anymore. She gave her father one of her classic slightly crooked smiles, and it just about melted his heart.

Wayne took her hand again, and they walked forward more slowly, the water now at Ruby’s waist.

“Look, Daddy!”

Beneath the water, there was a blue glow, pale at first, then steadily brighter as it spread throughout the spring.

“Oh my Lord!” Wayne said. It was working. The water all around them began to bubble. Wayne began to laugh, unconcerned about disturbing anyone who might be within earshot.

Ruby laughed too. “This really is fun!”

She pushed off the bottom, beginning to swim. Wayne was careful not to let go of her hand.

That didn’t matter, though.

As soon as she dropped her face below the surface, Ruby was violently sucked down into the water.

Her hand slipped from her father’s.

“Ruby!” he yelled. “Baby!”

He frantically dove after her.

The moment he went under, he could feel water forcefully pressing on his mouth and nose. Like the spring itself was trying to invade him.

He watched through the blur as Ruby spun away from him, as if she was being pulled by an invisible chain. She was yanked to the side of the spring, which seemed to come to life, a layer of dirt and rocks creeping across her body, trapping her.

Horrified, Wayne swam toward the wall, but he could no longer resist the water, now streaming powerfully into his nose and pushing apart his lips, filling his lungs. Drowning him.

As his field of vision began to darken, the end almost near, he was wildly catapulted out of the water—as if by a dozen invisible hands—soaring through the air and landing on the dirt.

Then he began to retch.

Violent, full-body spasms as he vomited up water, so much water.

When—five or ten minutes later—his body seemed to have finished, Wayne rolled over onto his back, utterly spent. Ruby, he thought, as he passed out.



* * *



—

IT WAS APPROXIMATELY three seconds after he felt the sun on his eyelids that Wayne began to panic.

He jumped to his feet and ran into the now-sunlit water, madly swimming down to where he remembered seeing his daughter get trapped. There was only a bare wall, just rocks and dirt. Was it all a bad dream? Had he really seen Ruby pulled into the rocky wall?

The events from the night began to crystallize in his head. It was real. His beloved baby girl was trapped. He had to get to her.

Wayne went up for air, then came back down again, his heart racing as he tore at the sharp rocks where’d she gone in, scooping away handfuls of earth in his determination to free her. The jagged edges lacerated his hands, but he continued to grab, dig, and pull, the blood from his tender fingers mixing with the stirred mud.

He felt an effervescent tingle on his face, then saw that the spring was once again filling with the blue glow.

There was a shift in the rocks, and suddenly she was there.

His Ruby, her head sticking out from the wall. Her eyes were open but unfocused.

Wayne reached out to touch her sweet face, but the water was already forcing its way into his nostrils and mouth. Again he tried to fight it, but the persistent water easily passed his lips and overwhelmed him. He waited for everything to turn dark, bracing himself for the violent ejection.

It never came.

Instead, the darkness intensified until he saw only blackness.

For a moment, he experienced nothing at all. No sound, no light, no sensation of any kind. He had no idea how long this lasted.

Slowly, he began to feel his body, like coming to after a fainting spell.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness.

It seemed he’d been transported to an entirely different place: a vast ocean, endless in every direction.

He was submerged deep in the boundless watery expanse, but felt no impulse to breathe.

Wayne knew, of course, that he hadn’t actually been transported anywhere.

He was dead.

He hadn’t expected it to feel like such a relief.