"Devil's Rock" by Dean Rasmussen

Devil's Rock

by Dean Rasmussen

 

The world had moved on. A towering hotel had gone up across the road, along with a row of condominiums in the distance. The area had flourished, yet the shoreline where Caleb had drowned was still the same. The lifeguard’s chair was still there, broken but unyielding after years of neglect, surrounded by weeds poking through white sand. A metal railing divided the area from visitors, along with an ominous posted sign.

 

NO TRESPASSING

Beach Closed.

Dangerous currents. Unstable conditions.

 

Despite the barrier, Audrey crawled under it and headed toward the shoreline.

It had been eleven years—to the day—yet her heart had never stopped aching. She’d known it wouldn’t be easy, but… damn.

She kicked off her sandals near the water. The memories were flooding back now: the cries for help, the panic, the soul-crushing shock of hearing the paramedics struggle to revive her son’s lifeless body.

At least, she was alone. She would need the privacy to work through the rising emotions.

This is where Caleb had taken his last breath. The same water, the same spot. Still, she pushed ahead, her feet sinking into the silt beneath the waves that seemed to nudge her forward.

Something in the water caught her attention.

A shadow rose and fell in the water, about thirty yards out. She wasn’t alone after all. A boy was swimming, or trying to, anyway. He waved and splashed, then dropped beneath the surface. Despite his reckless motions, he made no sound. He resurfaced a moment later, his actions growing more frantic.

Someone else had dared to ignore the warning.

The shadow was somehow familiar.

“Caleb?” she said to herself, saying his name for the first time in years without crying. She stepped toward him. The boy waved frantically now. She couldn’t see his face clearly, washed and battered by the waves washing over him. The midday sun obscured the details, glittering across the water between them.

She glanced back toward her car. Where were the boy’s parents? She was still alone. No lifeguard to come to the rescue—not that it had made any difference back then either. The lifeguard on duty that day had jumped from his podium but stumbled into the ocean without towing along a life preserver as if he had forgotten all his training.

“Caleb?” she said louder. “Is that you?”

Impossible.

Caleb had drowned. They had dragged his lifeless body from the water that day, along with the drowned lifeguard. She had stood beside his casket as they lowered it into the ground.

He had died.

But the figure in the water now.

It was him.

The way he swung his arms, the way his head lolled to his side, the way his brown hair bunched near the top where he’d let it grow long.

The boy dropped beneath the waves again. She scrambled into the water toward him. It rose to her waist, then her ribs, then her neck. She didn’t care. She had to reach her son. More than anything, she had to get to him.

She dove in headfirst—something she hadn’t done on that day eleven years ago. She’d put all her trust in the lifeguard to do his job.

Panic swelled in her chest. Each stroke of her arms was full of determination, fear, hope.

She saw his face now, or almost did. It was pale, lips parted, black eyes wide, almost pleading. Still, she pushed farther into the cold water, losing sight of everything behind her. The boy rose and fell in silence, not even a gasp or a cry for help as she closed in on him.

Ten feet, seven feet, five feet…

She stopped within arm’s length of his face and gasped in a sharp breath.

It wasn’t Caleb.

The face was all wrong. The eyes were gone, sunken back into his head, a scar on his left cheek. Somehow familiar, but not Caleb. Not her boy.

“No,” she whispered and backed away, floundering in the water while trying to keep calm. “You’re not—“

He lunged at her, grabbing her shoulders first then her head. Before she could even take a breath, he yanked her under the water. Salt water rushed into her nostrils and mouth. She kicked and pulled, but his grip only tightened on their way down into the murky depths. Her vision blurred, but other shadows appeared below her—faces—some of them old, some young, a mother, a child. All of them stared at her with blackened, empty eyes.

She caught a view of the boy’s clothing beneath the water: his lifeguard uniform. She recognized his scar now—she’d seen it on the day Caleb had died after they’d dragged the lifeguard’s body from the water. He had failed to save Caleb or himself.

But he hadn’t given up, even in death. He had tried to save someone, again and again, and now her.

They had attributed the excessive number of drownings along that beach to dangerous currents around Devil’s Rock, too strong for even the strongest swimmers, so they had eventually closed it off.

But she couldn’t be saved. Not now. Not by anyone. He’d wrapped his arms around her in some sickening embrace.

Clawing at the water just enough to reach the surface, she took in a gasp of air and caught a view of the beach. Another family had arrived. A young girl stood along the railing in a swimsuit where she’d stood only minutes earlier, staring out over the water with a bright smile.

Audrey tried to scream, if only to warn her, until she plummeted beneath the waves again.

The lifeguard yanked her down, his red uniform against bone-white flesh, his face so full of desperation.

He wouldn’t let go.

He would never let go.