Into the Waves

The moonlight glistened on her skin, a band of white tracing the arc of her arm as she reached out and plunged her hand into the rising swell. She pulled hard and kicked. The cold stabbed through her chest.

She kicked again. And again, harder this time. The sail bag pulled against her left arm, dragging it below her body and back toward her legs. 

She reached over the water careful to time her breath with the swell. She didn’t need a mouthful of icy saltwater choking her this far from shore. She was well past the strike zone where the waves crested, broke and crashed but only a hundred yards or so from the beach. It was still too shallow. The storm would arrive soon. An hour or two at most. But the surf was already churning.

She knew the water would weigh the sail bag making it difficult to pull as she swam. She thought after she got moving, got into a rhythm of stroke and kick, momentum would keep the bag moving. As long as she kept stroking and kicking. She hadn’t expected it to drag down, the ropes stiff from the cold of the water cutting into her wrist, rubbing her hand raw. She hadn’t expected it to slow her down this much.

But then, she hadn’t planned the late-night swim into the bay. 

Nothing about this night was planned. Nothing expected. Certainly not for him to come by the beach house. He had never come before. He knew he was not welcome, she was sure of it. The beach house was hers, her refuge, her escape. He knew that. She had told him. More than once.

And he had never shown any interest in it. Not when they met. Not when they married. And not when they split.

He was screaming at her. As usual. Calling her filthy names. She had borne such vitriol in the past. Accepted the abuse all the while believing it to have no effect. She thought she had grown numb to the wounds he inflicted. But as he spit his malice, cut her with his rage, he had stabbed to the depths of her soul. 

She had begun to believe it all.

As a mother. As a wife. As a human. She was worthless. 

A large swell caught her, slapping her in the face. She gasped, coughed, and gasped again. She righted herself and started to tread while she regained her breath, coughing the few drops of sea water trying to reach down her windpipe. 

She saw the harbor lights to the west. The lights sparkled along the port. She looked back in the direction of the beach, to the east and south. Fewer lights along that part of the shore signaled a beach town already abed.

The rope began pulling her arm downward. The sail bag was sinking. She turned away from the shore and out to sea. Into the blackness.

She reached over the water and pulled while giving two strong kicks. She pulled upward on the rope. It burned in her hand. She couldn’t tell if the bag was moving at all. She kicked harder, stroked more. Her left arm was being stretched; the muscles in her shoulder were screaming.

She kept stroking. Kicking. She let her head go under the water with the stroke, bobbing up for a breath before reaching over to grab more water and pull.

Another swell lifted her. She felt light. Now she could make it, stroke more, kick just a bit harder, she would start moving again. She lifted her arm up over the water and reached.

She grabbed air. 

She was sliding down the back of a large swell into the wave’s trough. 

The storm was coming in.

She felt a slap against her face as the next swell lifted her. The cold water burned. It felt like the slap of his hand. Especially from early on.

This one knocked her to the bed. She fell atop the tangle of bedclothes where she had lain a few hours earlier. His shouts echoed as her head spun, the side of her face burned. He stood over her yelling. Incoherent things. Demanding to know who had been there. Screaming nothing would keep her from him. Threatening her. Threatening anyone who came between them. She was crying, pleading. “No one,” she lied as she buried her face in the sheets breathing the fading scent.

She couldn’t understand the demonic screech that came from his mouth, his eyes bloodshot with rage.

“Not even death!” Spital flew from his mouth. His eyes were red with rage. She quaked.

The water. She was in the water. She shivered. How long had it been? How far out from shore had she swam?

Her legs fatigued. Her right arm was sore. Her left felt numb from the cold and the weight of the bag now pulling down directly below her. Just let it go, said a voice in her head. Just let him go. She wanted to let go, swim back to shore, get warm. But she wasn’t sure where she was. She couldn’t tell how far she had gone. If she was too close, if she hadn’t made it past where the seafloor dropped, the tide and the storm would wash the bag ashore. 

It had been Marc who had been there. It had been Marc’s hands caressing her, touching her body, stroking her. She could feel his weight as he lay on top of her, her arms grabbing his back, her legs wrapped around him.

It wasn’t yet an hour after Marc left when Jake arrived. When he burst through the door.

The water grew colder. Her neck felt stiff. Her right arm grew heavy with each stroke. She could no longer tell if she was lifting it out of the water or merely pushing through the icy blackness. She had no strength in her legs. 

The clang rang through the room. She felt the tremor vibrate through her hand and arm. Jake lay sprawled on the floor next to the bed, blood spilling from his temple. She raised the broken lamp in her hand as she stood over him. 

She could no longer feel her left arm. Her shoulder was now numb. Was she still pulling the bag? 

Maybe if I close my eyes, she thought. Just for a moment. Just to rest.

She was tired. Ever so tired.

She lay in Marc’s arms. She was warm. She was safe. At least for the moment.

Another icy slap against her face made her gasp and sputter. Where was she? What was she doing out in the bay in the middle of the night? She looked around in the dark. Fear gripped her as she thrashed in the icy water. 

She felt the tug of the rope on her left hand and then saw the faint lights on the shore. 

She remembered. His screams. The strange words. Not even death. 

Not even death…They were the same words in his vow…when they married.

She had gone to the garage, pulled the mainsail out of its storage bag and brought the bag into the bedroom. It was the only bag large enough for the body. The thick canvas would prevent blood from smearing along the floor and the sand. Dragging the bag down the beach proved more cumbersome than she had thought. And pulling the bag through the surf past the strike zone had exhausted her. Nothing about this night had been easy. 

Not that anything in her life had been easy of late.

But this was the only way. It was the only way she would be free. 

From him. Free of him.

A few more yards, she thought. Then I’ll let him go, she thought. She was so tired. So cold. How would she make it back to shore?

She tried to lift her arm over the water. She felt as if the sky were pressing down on her, pushing her arm back into the water as she tried to take one more stroke. 

Enough, she thought. That’s enough. I have to let him go here. Her legs were going numb. Her right arm and shoulders ached. She couldn’t feel her left arm. All she felt was the icy water against her face.

She reached down with her right hand to untie the rope from her left wrist. The knot had sinched, tightening from the cold water and the tension as she had pulled the sail bag. She struggled to tread water as she clawed at the knot, pulling at the tight loop around her wrist, trying to slip it over her hand. She felt burning, tearing as the rope scraped along her skin. She kicked harder, pulling at the rope even more. It was moving over her wrist, over her palm.

She was free.

She gasped in the cold. Her body felt numb. And she still had to swim back to shore.

She put her face in the water and threw her right arm up and over, flopping it into the water as she tried stroke, her legs flailed as she tried to get her body moving again.

It’s not far, she thought to herself. Just keep moving. Keep stroking. Keep kicking.

She felt a tug. Her right leg was caught on something. She kicked harder. Something had wrapped around her ankle. She wasn’t moving.

She reached down into the water to free her leg from whatever it was, kelp most likely. She couldn’t pull her foot up. She had to go under water to bend down to reach her ankle. Her hand slid down her leg and touched what felt like cold tentacles wrapped around her ankle. What is this? She grabbed at the thing and tried to pry it off. It was short and boney. There were several of them.

She shuddered. Not tentacles. Not kelp. They were fingers. A hand was clasped around her ankle.

She pulled and kicked, prying at the fingers. She balled her hand into a fist and tried to strike the thing, thrashing in the water trying to free her leg.

It grabbed her wrist.

She thrashed and kicked, her screams nothing but bubbles rising around her. It began to pull her down. And there, in the cold darkness, she saw. 

His red eyes.

She screamed one last time.

Into the Waves

By David J. Kaloyanides

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2023 by David J. Kaloyanides