The Anomaly(95)

But Molly came running in from the side and tackled her, sending the two of them sprawling in the pebbles.

“Go!” she screamed at me.

I ran to the water. Saw—or thought I saw—a head bobbing in the river, forty feet downstream. I wasn’t even sure in the darkness but I didn’t know where else Ken could be so I threw myself into the water.



I’ve never understood people who are scared of flying. I mean, okay, there you are, defying gravity, tens of thousands of feet above the ground in a machine that may be a couple of decades old and flown by a person who for all you know could be…Fine, maybe I do get it. But large bodies of water have always unnerved me far more. The ocean, specifically. It is huge and restless and strong and it owes us nothing. Weak as I was and with a head swirling with concussion, I felt much the same about the river.

It felt as if it was moving more quickly than before we’d entered the site, too. Maybe because of the rain. I hoped so, because otherwise it seemed like I was going to be dealing with rapids and I simply didn’t have what it took to win that fight.

I headed for the center line on the grounds that’d give me a better chance of glimpsing Ken’s head again—assuming that’s what it had been—and the water would be traveling faster there.

And yes—there it was, still thirty feet ahead of me. It was definitely Ken: He had his head tipped back, trying to gasp in air, and was thrashing about with both arms.

He went under, then reappeared—barely breaking the surface this time. And he was farther away.

“Swim, you bastard!” I shouted, but he couldn’t hear, and he couldn’t do it anyway.

I put my head down and kicked, pulling through the water with my arms until I was closer to the middle of the river and starting to move more quickly.

Ken’s head popped up again but now I could hear him choking, coughing water up out of his lungs. His arms were barely moving at all.

I stopped trying to fight the water, relinquishing any attempt to influence the path it had in mind for me. I hadn’t been making much difference anyway. Instead I kicked and used my arms to lift my torso, keeping a fix on Ken’s head.

But then it was gone again.

And this time it didn’t come back up.

I dived, going under the surface crooked, immediately bent around by a strong side current. It was pitch dark under there, swirling with bubbles, incomprehensible.

There was no way I could hope to find him. I was not even certain that I’d be able to find my own way back to the surface, turned around as I now was.

It was so very dark, black-green, and felt again like one of those places where there never was and never would be the promise of light. It seemed to be getting colder, and even darker, the void creeping in from the edges of my mind again.

A darker patch.

Ahead, a blacker black within the darkness.

And then it was more visible, as we turned a corner in the river and enough moonlight penetrated to make out the shape properly. I struck out for it, knowing I didn’t have much air left, but that even if I could get to the surface to top up there was no chance of then finding again what I could see ten feet in front of me now.

A shape, floating swiftly downward, arms up over his head, legs pulled out in front by a competing current. Eyes open. Trying to keep his mouth shut.

I kicked and pulled myself through the last yards and got an arm around his chest from behind. I hoped he’d be able to help, just a bit, but his mouth was cracking open and air leaking out, and I’m not sure he even knew I was there.

I looped out behind me with the other arm, pulling against the water, kicking out spastically until I smacked a foot into something below—and I knew, with absolute certainty, that one of the aquatic things from the pool up in the site had somehow gotten out ahead of us, that there was a hidden waterway connecting the two and it was now here in the dark depths and ready to pull us down with it.

But then my other foot connected, and from the way it slid I realized it was scraping the bottom of the river instead.

My lungs were bursting and my ears full of a high, singing note that was getting louder and louder, but I shoved my feet against the rocks below, one after the other, until my head crested the surface.

Ken’s came up with it and he was coughing and spluttering but still alive, and I kept driving my feet down, leaning back against the water, again and again, until suddenly more of me was out than in and I was stumbling backward. We fell together against the rocky side of the river.

I tugged my arm against Ken’s chest, snapping it hard—provoking a gush of water out of his mouth, and more coughing and retching. I was coughing, too, burning wet barks that felt as though my guts were coming up.

And then we were only panting, chests hitching up and down, slowly bringing our breathing back to normal.

“Cheers, Nolan.”

“You’re wel—Oh shit,” I said.

“What?”

“Molly.”



I pushed Ken around to go in front in case the opposing current got the better of him. We kept close to the bank, grabbing any outcrops we could find, pulling our way around stubby trees when they forced us into the river, fighting our way upstream as fast as we could.

Finally we turned the bend and saw the raft tilted up, still half-over the dingy. We ran up onto the beach, legs giving out underneath us.

“No!” Ken shouted.