Dark Waters (standard:horror, 3283 words)
Author: Connor White	Added: Feb 14 2002	Views/Reads: 3507/2363	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Eric discovers that some things are best left where they are.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


*   *   * 

Once Cynthia stopped shuddering under his grip Eric let her slump to the
concrete.  He was shocked at what he had just done and stared in awe at 
her wide, glazed eyes.  Never again would they stare at him in that 
mocking, knowing way.  She was dead.  Good.  The Unfaithful slut had it 
coming for a long time.  Who did she think she was sneaking around 
behind his back? 

He tried to think of a way to dispose of her body.  He was afraid to
bring her back to the car because someone might see him, and he 
couldn’t just dump her into the water. Floating bodies always seem to 
get themselves found eventually. 

The bridge was still new and work on the floating sections had not been
totally completed.  Watertight sections that floated on the surface 
supported the center span.  Several maintenance hatches dotted the 
sections to allow crews to do repair work on the bridge. The hatches 
were located just above the water line and when the storm-spawned waves 
hit the section wall water would rush over and momentarily cover the 
hatches.  Between wave strikes Eric dashed to one of these steel 
hatches and found it had carelessly been left unlocked by that 
morning’s construction crew.  He lifted the heavy cover and peered 
inside where he saw only darkness.  Just then a wave crashed against 
the section wall and water rushed over the concrete almost knocking 
Eric off his feet.  The water poured down the hatch into the chasm 
below. 

An idea forming in his head, Eric ran back to where his wife lay and
grabbed one of her ankles. He pulled her to the platform ledge and 
pushed her to the concrete below, and then dragged her limp body to the 
maintenance hatch.  He looked into her staring dead eyes one last time 
and then dropped her body into the depths, where a sickening crunch 
echoed up from below.  Eric then ran from hatch to hatch opening each 
one to let the sea pour in. 

He stood on the fishing platform and watched as wave after wave crashed
over the section and poured into its hollow depths.  Soon the section 
filled enough so that it sank below the water line where there was a 
rush of air as water inundated the structure. A deep rumbling moan 
shook through the bridge as the flooded section began to sink. The 
thick cables that held the sections to one another groaned under the 
new weight.  There were whistling snaps as loud as rifle fire as the 
cable fibers began to break.  Finally, with a shriek of tearing metal 
the flooded section broke free from the bridge and plunged into the 
depths. 

In the end it was cheaper for the State to build a new section instead
of raising the old one.  It was determined that the previous day’s 
maintenance crew had neglected to close the hatches on the section and 
the night’s storm had sent it to the bottom. 

*   *   * 

That was five yeas ago.  Now he is going back.  Not because he wants to,
he would just as soon forget his whore wife and let her rot through 
eternity, but because the goddamn civil engineers want to expand the 
bridge so they need to clear the old sunken section away to make room 
for the new construction.  The paper said that a team would be 
surveying the site early next week.  Eric has to work fast to hide any 
evidence of his wife’s body. 

The tidal current that usually rips beneath the bridge is non-existent
as the tide is in ebb.  Small fish are attracted to his light. He swats 
at them as he continues to dive deeper.  The floating bridge fades into 
the darkness above him as he continues to descend into the frigid 
blackness. 

A few minutes later Eric can fool himself no longer.  I’m scared, he
realizes. His mind is starting to play tricks on him.  Huge shadows 
cruise around him, just out of reach of his insignificant light.  Here 
in the ocean anything can come up at you from the depths. You’re never 
sure what you’re sharing the darkness with. 

No monsters come for Eric tonight.  A single four-foot sand shark
cruises within a few feet of him giving him a fright and then 
disappears, looking for more suitable prey. After his heart slows to a 
mild hammering Eric begins to make his descent once again. The rocky 
bottom blessedly comes into view and Eric lets out a sigh of relief.  
The empty space was starting to get to him and he is glad to finally 
have a plane of reference. 

Life clings to the rocks in a spectrum of fire.  Night creatures,
completely alien to our terrestrial world, glide about looking for a 
meal.  Huge brown tubeworms sway in the darkness to the eternal beat of 
the ocean. Eric is concerned with none of this.   He is irritated that 
the sunken section is not in sight.  He looks at the compass on the 
dive computer that is strapped to his arm and begins to kick in the 
general direction of where the section hopefully was. 

Even though he wears one of the newest and best dry suits on the market,
Eric could swear that the water is getting colder the further he goes.  
The life is getting thicker too.  The rocks are now almost completely 
hidden by organic growth. 

A dark, hulking shape looms out of the darkness in front of him.  It is
the bridge section, although it looks nothing like he remembers it.  An 
explosion of sea life completely hides the concrete beneath.  He notes 
that it has settled right side up and it still looks to be intact, no 
holes or cracks are visible.  Thick schools of silver fish slowly 
cruise around the man made object, reflecting Eric’s flashlight in 
bright flashes.  Eric stops for a moment and gazes at the section.  How 
could it have been overgrown so quickly? He wonders.  You must have fed 
them well my dear. 

Eric checks his dive computer and sees he still has plenty of air left
in his tank.  He begins to kick toward the life-covered mass. The 
bottom of the section has completely fused with the sea floor.  The 
once rectangular piece of concrete now looks like a knoll in the 
sea-bed. He wonders if the hatches will even be visible under all the 
sea life. 

It doesn’t take Eric long to find the hatches once he reaches the top of
the section.  Surprisingly, they have not even been touched by sea 
life.  They are slightly rusted but not even a single barnacle clings 
to them.  Five of the six hatches are closed.  The water rushing past 
while the section had been sinking must have forced them shut.  He now 
floats over the only open hatch and peers inside.  He sees only 
darkness.  Even when he points the dive light into the hole he can’t 
make out the floor of the section, which is about twenty feet below 
him.  All he sees is a faint gray blur of reflected light. 

The opening is just wide enough for Eric to squeeze himself and his gear
through.  For a brief moment his air tank is wedged against the side of 
the hatch and he is stuck upside down with his head pointed into the 
pitch darkness.  He nearly panics before he is able to work himself 
free.  Goddamn bitch! He curses to himself.  Look what you’re making me 
go through.  Cynthia, you always had to make it hard for me didn’t you? 


Eric uses the corroded rungs of the service ladder that drops to the
floor of the section to pull himself downward for a few feet before 
righting himself. 

He is stunned at what he sees.  Eric had expected the walls of the
section to be barren.  No light reaches into this cavern and the only 
inflow and outflow of water comes through the one open hatch.  There is 
no way that the few nutrients that drift through that small hole could 
ever sustain what he is now looking at.  A sea of white shimmers under 
his flashlight beam.  Anemones the color of snow blanket the concrete 
walls. They ripple in impossible patterns as Eric plays the light over 
them, completely awe struck by the beauty that surrounds him.  Billions 
of silken arms seem to reach toward the passing light.  He begins to 
notice faint specs of blue light that dance and flicker above the 
anemones.  They are some sort of phosphorescent microorganism, a kind 
he has never before seen in these waters. 

The flashlight begins to flicker for a moment but then returns to its
former brightness. He is not overly concerned.  He put brand new 
batteries in the light before he dove.  They are supposed to have a 
life of over six hours – plenty of time. Eric allows himself to sink 
toward the bottom of the white-lined chasm. He cannot forget why he is 
here.  He has a job to finish.  There is no time for distractions. 

Eric’s knees sink into the soft carpet of anemones as he comes to rest
on the floor of the section.  He plays the flashlight over their 
fragile bodies looking for any sign of irregularity in the uniform 
carpet of whiteness that could show where Cynthia’s remains – if there 
are even any left, which is doubtful by the look of things – might be 
hidden.  He glides to the nearest mound and begins to rip away the 
anemones to see what they hide.  They flash a brief moment as they are 
torn from their perches and tossed to the side.  Eric uncovers a small 
chunk of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling when the section was 
flooding.  He moves about the chasm floor tearing up areas of anemones 
for several minutes, but finds no sign of his wife’s remains.  The 
water could have pushed them anywhere.  He begins to kick toward the 
far end of the section, which is about fifty feet away, scanning the 
carpeted bottom. 

Eric reaches the far end of the chasm without finding any sign of
Cynthia.  He turns back the way he came.  A faint squeaking groan fills 
the cavern, followed by a clang.  For a moment he is puzzled, and then 
he realizes what it was he heard.  It sounded like a rusted hatch 
closing.  Eric begins to frantically swim toward the opposite side of 
the section.  When he gets there his fears are realized as he sees that 
the hatch has indeed closed.  How?  He thinks to himself.  He grabs the 
rusted turn-wheel but knows it won’t budge even before he twists it 
with all of his might. He kicks to the next hatch and tries it as well. 
 It is corroded even worse than the first.  There is no way he can get 
it open.  Desperate now, he swims from hatch to hatch trying to open 
one of them.  None of them budge. 

Eric swims back to the hatch he came in through and sets to work on it
with his diving knife.  He rams the blunt ended blade again and again 
into the rim of the hatch, trying to somehow break it loose. 

His flashlight flickers a moment, goes out and then comes back on.  The
water is colder now, much colder than it was when he came in here.  His 
hands are becoming numb and he is beginning to shiver.  The flashlight 
goes out again.  It is not completely dark in here.  The walls glow a 
faint green.  The blue flickers of light are beginning to swirl faster 
now.  Eric shakes the flashlight and it comes back on.  He plays the 
light across the walls and into the darkness of the far end of the 
chasm.  All he can see is white-lined walls.   He is breathing hard 
now, too hard.  His air is getting low.  Calm down!  He shouts in his 
mind.  You have to be rational, you don’t want to end up like sweet 
Cynthia now do you? 

But he can’t calm down now, not while watching what is going on around
him.  The anemones have gone wild.  They are having a collective 
seizure, wildly jerking back and forth at an impossible speed.  The 
blue flickers are swirling madly about one another. Eric pounds the 
knife into the hatch with all his strength.  The flashlight goes out 
again, but not before illuminating something that makes his blood run 
as cold as the water surrounding him.  A figure floats in the far 
depths of the chasm, arms floating at its sides. 

Eric is gasping now. Adrenaline coursing through his body, He slams the
knife repeatedly into the hatch.  It suddenly snaps in his hand and he 
is left holding a plastic hilt. 

The water thrums around him as thousands upon thousands of anemones beat
themselves together in a frenzied rage. 

My love. 

A voice pierces through his head. 

You came back. 

Eric pushes himself away from the hatch and begins kicking frantically
toward the bottom and away from...her.  Jesus Cynthia, how? 

As he nears the bottom he looks up and screams through his regulator.  A
dim shape is descending upon him.  He kicks his legs with the force 
that only the terrified can muster and begins a desperate flight toward 
the opposite end of the section.  He is breathing in panicked gasps and 
his air is being consumed quickly.  An alarm begins to go off on his 
dive computer, he is almost out of air, but he does not pay any notice. 
Eric continues his flight. 

The air suddenly stops flowing. He draws in nothing.  Dread sweeps over
him in a violent torrent.  He can run no more.  The ice-cold hand of 
fear grips his racing heart as he comes to the realization that he is 
about to die.  The water thrums in a morbid applause of anticipation. 

A hand gently grips his arm and turns him around.  He wants to shut his
eyes, but he cannot, they are frozen open.  The dark silhouette of a 
woman floats in front of him.  The blue flashing creatures swarm about 
her.  She drifts closer. 

I’ve waited so long for you. 

The flashlight Eric had forgotten he was carrying suddenly flickers into
life again for a moment, revealing the apparition before him.  Her hair 
obscures her face from view, but Eric knows that it is Cynthia.  She 
draws nearer and reaches out the flesh eaten hands of a corpse and 
grasps his arms. 

It’s so cold here Eric. 

Her face is revealed as her hair drifts apart.  Eric screams the last of
the air of his lungs into the water.  Her lips are mostly gone, they 
hang in strips about her mouth.  Her nose is still the same it always 
was but her eyes, God her eyes.  They are nothing but sockets, dark as 
the water that surrounds them. 

There is no peace. 

The divelight goes out and drops from Eric’s numb hands.  Cold fingers
brush across his cheek.  His regulator is gently taken from his mouth 
and then moments later his mask is pulled from his head, allowing 
frigid water to flood his eyes.  He tries to fight her off but all of 
his strength is gone.  Lungs aching, he desperately tries to take a 
breath.  Cold water rushes down his throat, choking him.  He is beyond 
panic. 

We’ll rest together. 

Tattered lips press against his, and the dark waters swirl around him as
his life drains away. 


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