Chapter 4: The Drowned Man's Smile

Chapter 4: The Drowned Man's Smile

The water was a lie. It looked clear, inviting, a turquoise sanctuary under the benevolent sun. But as Liam sliced through its surface, leaving the shore and its ghosts behind, he felt the truth of it. The water was cold. Not the refreshing cool of the deep ocean, but a biting, unnatural chill that seemed to seep past his skin and into his marrow. It felt heavy, thick, as if he were swimming through liquid glass rather than saltwater.

Still, the hunter’s instinct, newly reawakened, pushed him onward. His target, the woman in the distance, was a black dot of glorious purpose. Each powerful stroke was a repudiation of the fear that had owned him for weeks. He was taking back his kingdom, one yard at a time. The rescue buoy, that bright red symbol of life and safety, bobbed faithfully before him, his Trojan horse.

He was in his element. The rhythmic pull of his muscles, the surge of water along his body, the salty taste on his lips—it was a familiar symphony of control. He could feel the bottom rising to meet him as he passed over a submerged sandbar, the water shallowing to only six or seven feet. He was making good time. The woman was closer now, her form more defined. Another fifty yards and he would be upon her. He could already taste the victory, the clean, sharp satisfaction of overwriting the corrupted memory of Arthur Vance.

That was when the first hand grabbed him.

It erupted from the sandy seabed beneath him, a thing of grit and chilling pressure. Cold, sandy fingers, unnaturally strong, clamped around his right ankle. The shock was electric, a jolt of pure, primal terror that stole his breath. He instinctively kicked out with his other leg, his mind struggling to process the impossible. A shark? A snag of kelp?

But the grip was too much like a hand.

He twisted, trying to look down through the churning water. As he did, another hand shot up, locking onto his other ankle. They weren't flesh. They were coalesced sand and spectral mist, glowing with a faint, phosphorescent malice. They were the hands he’d seen reaching from the seafoam on the shore, but now they were real, tangible, and they were pulling him down.

Panic, cold and absolute, exploded in his chest. He was being dragged under. The hunter’s confidence shattered into a million pieces. The water, his ally, became a suffocating enemy. He opened his mouth to shout, but a wave slapped him in the face, filling his mouth with brine. He choked, sputtering, his powerful swimmer’s body reduced to a flailing, desperate mess.

He was a lifeguard. He knew how to break a panicked swimmer’s grip. He tucked his knees to his chest and mule-kicked with all his might. For a second, the grip loosened, but then more hands erupted from the sand. One wrapped around his thigh, another his wrist. They were everywhere, a forest of spectral limbs rising from the depths to claim him. They pulled him under completely, the bright sun vanishing, replaced by a green, muted world of chaos and terror.

The burning in his lungs began almost immediately. He writhed, his muscles screaming, twisting his body against the unyielding grips. He was strong, an expert in this environment, but he was fighting a current with a hundred arms. Through the saltwater sting in his eyes, he could see them now—dozens of hands, all pale and waterlogged, their sandy texture giving way to the wrinkled, bluish skin of the drowned. They were Arthur’s hands, multiplied into a legion.

This was it. This was the drowning. The panic, the pain, the desperate, futile struggle. He was experiencing the exact horror he had so clinically inflicted upon the old man. The irony was a bitter acid in his throat. His mind flashed to Arthur’s face that day, the initial surprise turning to terror. He had watched it with a god’s detachment. Now, that same terror was his own.

He was fading. Black spots danced in his vision. His struggles weakened. With a last, desperate surge of adrenaline, he yanked his captured arm, not away, but towards himself, using the red rescue buoy as a brace. He slammed the hard plastic float down onto the hand gripping his wrist. There was no sound, but he felt a tremor, a loosening. He wrenched his arm free and clawed frantically for the surface.

He broke through with a ragged, desperate gasp, sucking in air and seawater. He coughed, retching, his body shaking uncontrollably. The hands were gone. He was free. Without a second thought, he abandoned the buoy, abandoned his mission, and swam for the shore with a wild, panicked energy he didn’t know he possessed. He didn’t swim; he scrambled, a wounded animal fleeing a predator it could not comprehend.

His feet found the bottom, and he stumbled through the shallows, falling to his knees at the water’s edge. He crawled onto the hot, dry sand, collapsing onto his stomach, his body heaving as he vomited saltwater. He lay there for a long moment, the sun beating down on his back, his heart hammering like it would break through his ribs. The sand was solid, real. He was alive.

After a minute, his breathing began to steady. His rational mind, battered and bruised, tried to reassert itself. A freak current? A hallucination brought on by stress and dehydration? It had to be. It had to be.

Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself up, turning to look back at the water. He scanned the area where he’d been attacked, expecting to see nothing but the placid, sun-dappled surface of the sea.

And then he saw him.

Standing about thirty yards out, right where the sandbar dropped off into the deep, was Arthur Vance.

He wasn't a reflection. He wasn't a fleeting image in a wave, or a distortion in the corner of Liam’s eye. He was solid. Three-dimensional. He stood on the surface of the water as if it were solid ground, the gentle swells parting around his ankles. He wore the same soaked cardigan, the same threadbare trousers. His thin, white hair was plastered to his head. Water dripped from him ceaselessly, falling onto the ocean below without a splash, rejoining its source.

Liam stared, his blood turning to ice. The bustling sounds of the beach—the laughter, the distant music, the cry of gulls—all faded into a dull, silent roar. There was only the apparition and the terrible, profound silence between them. The hunter had become the hunted. The game he thought he was playing was a lie. He had never been in control.

As Liam watched, frozen in abject terror, Arthur Vance, the drowned man, the spirit of vengeance, slowly lifted his head. The black, hollow pits of his eyes found Liam’s. And then, he did something that shattered the last vestiges of Liam’s sanity.

He smiled.

It was not a friendly smile. It was a slow, terrible curve of the lips on a bloated, dead face. It was a smile of supreme confidence, of patient, inevitable victory. It was the calm, knowing smile of the hangman who sees his charge finally stepping onto the gallows. It was a smile that said, Yes. That was me. And that was only the beginning.

The last shred of Liam’s composure tore apart. A strangled sob of pure fear escaped his throat. He scrambled to his feet, slipping on the loose sand, and ran. He ran from the beach, from the sun, from the laughing families and the idyllic scene. He ran from the smiling ghost standing on the water, abandoning his post, his plan, his entire life’s philosophy of power and control. He ran for the perceived safety of his car, for the sanctuary of his apartment, with the drowned man’s smile burned forever onto the back of his mind.