| |
Ethan leaned into the throttle, steering the IRB in an arc back the way he’d come. The small boat hit a bigger wave side on and was almost airborne. Amber screamed his name and he whipped his head around, expecting to see arms reaching for her, or her being dragged from the vessel.
“Ethan,” she begged, looking around at the water in terror, “don’t tip me in.” Her face was white, and his stomach heaved imagining the consequences of the boat overturning and them both stuck helpless out here, while those...those people...
He swallowed down bile. “Sorry,” he said hoarsely, easing the throttle off as much as he could stand to.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m dropping you at Ocean Beach. The further you are away from there, the better.”
“From where?”
“Bascath Beach.”
“Ethan - did you really see people? Couldn’t it have been, like, dolphins or something?”
“It wasn’t dolphins. It wasn’t that clear close to the surface, there were a lot of bubbles from the waves, but it was clearer lower down. I know what I saw.” Without sunlight, clouds above, it had been dark, but not too dark to see them. Where the seabed rose steeply towards the surface, he had seen them. Moving through the water slowly, limbs moving, like walking through water. Upright, clothed, hair wafting. He’d been a surf rescuer long enough to recognise a person in the water.
His first instinct had been exactly that: rescue. He’d thrust deeper towards the person he’d seen, painting Harvey and Jasmine there in his mind. Then he’d seen another shadowy shape beyond them, and more below until the steep slope out across the span of the Bay hid them from sight. The ones he saw didn’t look his way, moving with slow nightmarish purpose towards the village. His stomach heaved again. What the hell?
“Ethan – was it –”
“What?”
“...Jasmine and Harvey?”
He looked at her.
“It was her sarong. Around the motor,” she pointed a shaking hand towards where he crouched at the throttle.
“Are you sure?” But already he was recalling Harvey and Jasmine beside him on the beach yesterday. The fabric wrapped around the knife, eddying on the surface before sinking... If the sarong wasn’t hers, it was identical. “I didn’t recognise...anyone.”
He fumbled in his bag for his water bottle and handed it wordlessly to Amber. She braced herself against the motion of the boat and opened it for him. He took a grateful sip. He offered it to her in turn but she shook her head, and put the lid back on, then clutched one arm around her stomach, searching the water in their wake.
Ethan’s scattered thoughts skipped between the scene at the beach yesterday, to what he’d seen under water, to managing the trajectory of the IRB, his mind like scattershot ricocheting around inside his skull. Adrenaline, he knew, but it made it hard to think clearly.
On the beach yesterday...the girl in the water. Just a cute swimmer. More than cute if he was honest. Harvey had thought so too. When Skye had got them all to leave, he’d noticed Harvey seemed more interested in the girl in the water than the girl he was with right then. Skye had been the opposite. Jealous because of the attention Ethan was directing elsewhere?
She’d wanted them all to leave, badly. That had been enough for him; he’d vaguely connected it to her issues of being by the water. But could it have been more? More like...Daniel’s papers more? Like people walking through water more? His racing thoughts came into sharper, frightened focus.
He powered down the throttle, letting the IRB coast in on the surf of Ocean Beach, steering it as close as he could to the water’s edge. Switching the motor to idle, he helped Amber over the side and into thigh-deep water. She was so stiff from rigid tension she staggered like a robot through the low waves. He watched her until she was safe up on the sand, then began to turn the boat around.
“Where are you going?” she shrieked.
“Bascath Beach. It’s quicker by water.”
“W-what about m-me?” Her teeth were chattering now, and he could see her shivering.
He eased the motor, and nudged closer to the sand again. The relief on her face hit him hard. He shrugged off his jacket and held it out to her over the side of the boat. She hesitated for a moment, then gingerly waded back through the water to him and took it, and splashed back to the sand fast. The jacket was miles too big, and she looked like a kid when she turned to face him again, slipping her arms through the sleeves and hugging them to her.
“You’ll be all right. Just go home. Stay away from the water. And don’t tell anyone. For all we know this is freaking normal for this place and we just never knew. I just need to double check...something.”
“Don’t go in the water, Ethan!” her eyes were huge with fear.
“I won’t. It’s just quicker to the village by sea. And safer for you by the saddle path. I’ll be fine. I’ll check up on you later okay?”
She nodded, still shivering, but her teeth had stopped chattering.
He tried to force a smile, and she matched his effort with a weak grin that looked like it hurt. Firing up the throttle, he steered the boat around toward the Bay again, powering across the water, the IRB bounding across the waves without a passenger to worry about.
He crossed the line of where the submerged people would maybe be if he guessed right about where they were headed. His heart pounded, his stomach roiling sickly, imagining hands were reaching for the boat, to catch it and pull him down. This was insane. He knew what he had to do. He had to find Skye. Almost certainly, her creepy stalker Hunter was deep in whatever this was.
