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Back Out of Water Save as PDF
Chapters (20)
  1. Table of Contents
  2. Introduction by Gemma Files
  3. Endoskeletal
  4. Making Monsters
  5. Dead Man’s Curve
  6. In Tongues
  7. The Eyes of Salton Sea
  8. UnderwaterThing
  9. Tall Grass, Shallow Water
  10. Intersect
  11. Grave Mother
  12. Thorn Tongue
  13. Through Gravel
  14. Still Life with Natalie
  15. Golden Avery
  16. Scavengers
  17. The Eye Liars
  18. Magnifying Glass
  19. Crosswind
  20. Renovation

“He can swim fine. He knows what the water wanted; knew what it would cost him. He didn’t steal that gold, he bought it. Now he’s paid for it.”

He pulled me off the bone beach and into a copse of tall sunflowers.

Behind me came the sound of lapping water. Of music. The Beach Boys playing from a yacht that cruised past the resort. The arcing waves dragged at the beach, pulling dried fish back into the water, leaving fine white powder sand in their wake. I squeezed my eyes shut and swore I could hear laughter, the buzz of neon. The smell of fish frying, not baking on the shore.

I looked out at the sea, waiting to see if the water foamed with hunger, if it would surge right through the front doors and fill the rooms with bones and the dead. But the water had stopped, just kissing the beach. The music continued. Robb hummed along. The people on the yacht danced and waved.

“They can’t stop here now—there’s nowhere nice enough to stay. But they’ll be back. A whole fleet of them. Crowds.” Robb reached down and pulled up a fistful of weeds, the small beginnings of my sunflowers. “Better get to work. Let’s get this place ready. Clear out the trash and trailers, fill the pool. Clean the rooms.”

“What are you doing?” I grabbed the seedling flowers from him and pressed them back into the dirt.

“Treasure hunting.” He shook the sticky soil from his hand.

I shook my head. The birds above us, circling, made me even dizzier. Robb placed his scarred hands on my shoulders. They felt like anchors, like heavy stones pressing me in place.

“I’m not the guy who takes treasure out of the sea,” he said. “I’m the guy who puts it back. But if I found a billion dollars in treasure, I’d use it to live in a beachfront palace with a beautiful woman. So I don’t much see the need to sail off again. I’m staying.”

I tore myself out of his grip, spat in his golden eyes, and ran back to the beach, north across the powdered bone to the edge of the water, as close to the hill as I could get.

The water was clear. Fresh as a young sea with a temper. I could see straight to the bottom. There was no Alden. No wreck. There were a thousand smooth stones, round and bright as eyes.

UnderwaterThing

UNDERWATERTHING

Nothing in the sea stays still for long. The weights strapped to Mandy’s wrists and ankles and the brick tied around her swollen middle wouldn’t keep her down there forever. Chains are only as strong as their oxidizer, and even the tightest twist of rope unravels as its proteins do. With time and science, she’d be let go, and Tyler knew it.