[SPEAKER_00]: Dan is in zone tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to another episode of the Macabre, the terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight, let's find out what becomes of our boys upriver.
[SPEAKER_00]: Allow me to quickly recap the story so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will also link the video on your screen so you may watch it first if you wish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Four friends head out to relax on the water and hang out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take their jet skis up a tributary to check it out and find an old boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside there are strange patterns on the walls and an old book.
[SPEAKER_00]: As they head back up the tributary, one of the friends Travis, accidentally hits and kills an old man with his jet ski.
[SPEAKER_00]: The friends decide to go on home without notifying anyone, and as they speed away, the body left to decay in the sun, a mournful cry echoes through the leaves, and across the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: This story is called of the sea and was written by A.G.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hilton.
[SPEAKER_00]: We must have taken a different turn at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: What turn?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a straight shot all the way back here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Couldn't be.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that were true, how?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've shut the hell up a second so I can think.
[SPEAKER_00]: The others have been going on like that for some time now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Round and round the argument goes, like the sigils in the boat, like our progress since leaving the scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time the argument goes round, the air becomes increasingly charged with desperation.
[SPEAKER_00]: because even though we'd faithfully retraced our way back, this is the third time we've rounded a bend that ought to have taken us to the main channel only to find it opening upon a stretch of river we'd sped past just ten minutes before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the kneel of my fuel gauge flirts with the red E, and the sun's rays are turning toward that burned orange of a summer sunset.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian says.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last of his inebriation seems to have melted away in the face of the situation, and his eyes dart about the trees along the bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We keep going this way, and in order to have taken us back a long time ago, but it's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to yourself right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been making a straight shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't why haven't we made it back?
[SPEAKER_00]: We should've been back hours ago, but here we are in the same fucking place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something's happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: This place has changed somehow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it won't let us leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis whirls on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a second, I think he's balling his fists for a swing, but he only focuses Brian down with an icy stare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shut up with the weird shit!
[SPEAKER_00]: No one needs you talking out of your ass and bringing up morbid stuff while we try to figure this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian returns the stare with one of his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't know what exactly you think there is to figure out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is impossible, but here we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, is no one gonna state the obvious.
[SPEAKER_00]: He motions around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is no one gonna acknowledge where we are?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where we keep coming back to?
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian, I swear.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where Travis hit that guy, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Except, where's the body?
[SPEAKER_00]: At that, we all give the stretch of river a second appraisal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, Brian is right, but I've refused to accept the idea or give it voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always loved stories of high strangeness, of lost time and warped realities.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ideas fascinate me, but I always took them for what they had to be, fantasies.
[SPEAKER_00]: being forced to reckon with such a paradox firsthand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm finding my mind unwilling to accept what my senses are reporting.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say it last.
[SPEAKER_00]: That bank over there is where he was left.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I keep looking at it every time we pass and telling myself it just looks similar, but it's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at this point, I don't know how many times we passed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not you two, Danny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis says.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're both right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill says.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't understand it, but we're not going anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how much we move.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're the one who needs to get his head out of his ass and see what's happening, Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is happening?
[SPEAKER_00]: Please enlighten us.
[SPEAKER_00]: How am I supposed to know?
[SPEAKER_00]: All I know is what I can see, and what I can see is that we're not getting out of here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we just stop pussy footing around things?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ryan says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine, I'll say it if no one else will.
[SPEAKER_00]: This all started after Travis killed that old guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Silence, then.
[SPEAKER_00]: All eyes turn on Travis, who continues to regard Brian with an icy gaze.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill clears his throat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I think we need to take a second to cool off and Brian wheels on his brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't act like you weren't thinking the same things?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can accept that somehow we keep coming around the same stretch or river, is it too crazy to think we've been, I don't know, cursed or something?
[SPEAKER_00]: like wandering into a screwed up fairy tale.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm used.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuckin' A, exactly like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you suggesting?
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis' cold look is drifting, turning towards something smoldering.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like the drunken master has all the answers over here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just what are you implying?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: All I know is none of this shit started until you ran down that guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your mess.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you need to stay here and figure it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: A moment passes in stillness like that preceding the first raindrops of a storm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I become cognizant of something coming unglued within Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something within him, which, until now I had never been aware, first threatens to break to the surface, then makes good on the threat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis' eyes bulge, a thick vein pulses on his forehead.
[SPEAKER_00]: With a half articulate cry, he launches himself from his ski toward Brian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill and I stare open mouth in shock.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though no one seems as shocked as Brian, whose eyes bulge with a sudden fear that matches Travis's fury.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis is too far and falls short in the water, giving Brian time to crank the engine and jet further up the channel.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Brian makes it no more than twenty feet before his jet ski splutters and coughs back a muddy wad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian hits the throttle again, but the craft only grinds against the bottom of the channel, which is suddenly too shallow to traverse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis wades toward Brian, but his wild eyes now focus only on the stuck jet ski, as a stream of low profanity slips from his lips.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian, however, continues to back away through the shallows, telling Travis to stay away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before anyone can do anything, a wind whips through the trees, all around us the foliage bends and groans, as black clouds seem to boil down on us from nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: The clear sunset of the afternoon vanishes, choked off by the sudden looming darkness, and fat rain drops begin to pelt down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knock it off, you too!
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill shouts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian, get back here!
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to find some cover!
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough rainfalls!
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we can get past this!
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe Brian is too focused on Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he can't hear over the wind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead of coming back, he retreats further up the shallow channel as the rain intensifies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck you Travis!
[SPEAKER_00]: You know this is on you!
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Bill's calls for his brother to stop become frantic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dark shapes, partly obscured by the falling rain, detach themselves from a bank near Brian and slip into the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: I join in with Bill, pointing to the shapes and telling him to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only something bumps my jet ski, and I see something scaly past beneath me in the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill II suddenly has his attention drawn to the surrounding water while Travis sloshes back and clambers up his own jet ski.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around us, the rain suddenly falls like a heavy curtain, cutting off sight beyond a few feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made the roar of the rain and a boom of thunder, I think I can hear screaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this too is lost to me, as something snaps at my leg from the water and jossles the jet ski.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vision blurred from the pounding rain, I flail in panic, and almost go over the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a hand catches me and sets me back upright.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turn around!
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis yells at my side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turn around and go back the way we came!
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to try to get out of here!
[SPEAKER_00]: He jets off, soon swallowed by the gray.
[SPEAKER_00]: I follow, unsure who else might be ahead or behind me, praying everyone got moving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each pelting rain drop stings on exposed skin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once or twice, I hit something in the water, and can't tell if it's a gator or if I'm running a ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each time I fight with the steering bars to keep making some kind of forward progress,
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reminded again of the strange cry that went up after we left the scene, how the body seemed to vanish.
[SPEAKER_00]: And is it me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or does the whistling wind sound like that mournful cry?
[SPEAKER_00]: All at once the heavy rain breaks to a steady drizzle, and I find Travis and Bill floating ahead of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond them, I see the opening to the marsh and the old boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis yelled something drowned out by the thunder, but I can tell by his motioning us forward that he means to shelter on the boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: We follow behind, and soon scramble aboard, leaving the jet skis in a nearby clump of aquatic grass, with the prayer nothing will happen to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I climb up, I look back and notice two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, there are more reptilian shapes encircling the boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second, there is no sign of Brian.
[SPEAKER_00]: The others have gone below deck to avoid the rain, and I follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither Bill nor Travis seemed to have registered the oddities in the space, as the two of them stand nose to nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill presses a finger into Travis's chest.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell was that back there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Huh?
[SPEAKER_00]: Your dumbass brother was talking at his ass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got me pissed off, that's all.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill looks to me as I descend, then pass me to the empty air.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's Brian?
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he was behind you, Danny?
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't see anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought maybe he was ahead of me with you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill pushes past me and back up into the rain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian!
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you hear me?
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes on like that, bellowing from the deck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis stalks the opposite end of the room with his phone aloft, as if searching for a signal, while I sink down and let my eyes settle on the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a few minutes, Bill's cries grow weaker, and the storm whips up in fury once more as an answering shriek in the wind carries above us.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Bill comes back down, he sags onto the bottom step, soaked to the bone.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this far-off look in his eye as he stares past the moisture dripping from his nose and into the puddle growing around his feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: His silent detachment stretches on until I finally mumble something just to break the quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian probably got up into the trees for shelter.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can look for him once this freak storm blows over.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looks at me then, and I regret even voicing the idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: His gaze says he knows a lie when he hears one, and yet he still looks at me with a desperation for it to be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to have hurt my gaze.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian knows how to look after himself, and I heard someone out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm... I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was calling and the wind still up so it's hard to tell, but I thought I heard someone calling back in response.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace is shit!
[SPEAKER_00]: Across the room, Travis slams his phone down on the rickety table, scattering various odds and ends, along with the worn book I'd seen Brian flipping through.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand!
[SPEAKER_00]: Perfect service the whole time, and now nothing!
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill asks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you want to call for help?
[SPEAKER_00]: After you were so hell bent on keeping this quiet and not having anyone poke around?
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you're stranded, sure, let's call in the cavalry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Calm down, Bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can help us find your brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill's on his feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stumbled to my own and look between the two, sensing another storm about to burst inside the cabin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, take a breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't act like you give a shit about Brian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill presses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not after you show your true colors out there on the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the word for you, Brian would be here instead of... He motions vaguely about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wherever the hell he is right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis takes a step forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian's a grown-ass man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not my fault if he didn't follow us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you think the storm is somehow my fault, too?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill's face twists into a sour smile.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sucks at his teeth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you've always thought you were above everyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daddy's money and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And damn if I didn't turn a blind eye because it'd been fitted me, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's not just your fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we're all a little bit to blame.
[SPEAKER_00]: All this weird shit got me thinking back to some things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of times when maybe I should have asked more questions and didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this is just karma coming back around.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you better stop right there before you say something you'll regret.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You gonna dump me out here like that old guy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis advances another step.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you to shut the fuck up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the weirdest thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Haven't thought about it in years, but now I keep coming back to it, like some drain my mind keeps circling, round and round.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where'd you disappear to the night after our high school graduation?
[SPEAKER_00]: The big party, it brings place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely you remember
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something in Travis's eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: A spark that, after having watched the fiasco on the river, I just know is about to explode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the scary thing is, I'm not sure what that explosion will entail.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm starting to think, I don't really know this person at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I step between the two palms out in awarding gesture to each.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both of you back off!
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis looks shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know he can't believe quite little Danny is putting himself in the middle of things, but I see him relax.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Danny's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fuck this conversation anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis returns to his corner to soak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, I pushed Bill gently back toward the stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: He resists at first, then allows himself to be turned and ushered back above deck.
[SPEAKER_00]: The wind still house around intermittently, but the rain has reduced to a steady drizzle from the lightning cracked sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: I searched the surrounding water for more reptilian shapes and find none.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm suddenly wondering if they were ever there.
[SPEAKER_00]: A part of me is desperately clinging to the idea that this is all some nightmare I've yet to wake up from.
[SPEAKER_00]: What were you talking about back there?
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked Bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I'm sure we're out of Travis's ear shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about a party?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'm just talking out my ass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Making connections that aren't there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what the hell is even going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: Looping around on a straight river?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe none of this is real and I've lost it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've lost it, we all have.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what were you talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been in the back of my mind ever since Brian.
[SPEAKER_00]: A tightness takes Bill's face at the mention of his brother's name.
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes start scanning the tree line as he goes on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, since Brian mentioned that girl Samantha from way back in school,
[SPEAKER_00]: For some reason, it brought back this memory of that graduation party at Frank's place.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Family was doing something I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember being bummed to miss it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was a rager.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of young and dumb people looking back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, you remember how Frank's folks were?
[SPEAKER_00]: We had run of the place, plenty of booze and no one keep an eye on things.
[SPEAKER_00]: First time I ever got real down bad, like black out bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: But suddenly I'm remembering these hazy snapshots from back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: About Samantha?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but also about Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: My guts twist up a little.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tell him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, maybe I'm making connections that aren't there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's just that I've never been so pissed at that asshole before.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't shake it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember him, and I remember her stumbling up to an upstairs bedroom while I was almost down for the count on the couch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never really thought anything about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know Travis had a reputation even back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always was a ladies man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the more I think about it, I'm thinking that all the stumbling was on her part.
[SPEAKER_00]: Samantha's I mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like Travis was kind of propping her up and dragging her along.
[SPEAKER_00]: The words hang between us as the rain continues its pattering.
[SPEAKER_00]: The weird bits of bone and glass tinkled together and a rolling peel of thunder booms across the marsh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think?
[SPEAKER_00]: I start, but can't finish.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I'm remembering it right or if it had anything to do with how she ended up that week later, but I can't shake it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I just keep circling it in my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly I'm thinking of the weird carvings from inside the boat and their looping, cyclonic patterns.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's got me wondering about some other stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Random stuff maybe, but I just can't get it out of my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know Travis's dad has always been connected.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure the money and being a big shot lawyer helped with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes I wonder if it's not deeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to think in how he's gotten Travis out of a lot of scrapes over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Shoot.
[SPEAKER_00]: One time I was riding with him and we got pulled.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was plastered, ought to have gotten a DUI open and shut.
[SPEAKER_00]: But his dad came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wasn't even pissed or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now was it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing came of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never heard anything about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think he advertised that stuff?
[SPEAKER_00]: Made me swear, never to say anything, especially not to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill shrugs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who knows?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the reflective type.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never step back to see the bigger picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think you've always been as little pet friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pet?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, like a little brother or something, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think he treated you like a charity case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Given you stuff, taking you out?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hell, still doing it to this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it made him feel better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Offset all the other stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: On some level, maybe he knows he's just an asshole.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we all are, for never seen it before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you think something happened between Travis and Samantha that maybe it had something to do with what happened to her?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that if there were any connection, his dad could have hushed it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying I'm looking back on things, and maybe it's perspective from not being quite so young and dumb.
[SPEAKER_00]: But after all this today, after that guy on the river and how Travis reacted, I'm just wondering about a lot of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who knows, maybe Brian was right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it even has something to do with all this weird shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We sit there.
[SPEAKER_00]: My head is spinning.
[SPEAKER_00]: A part of me wants to reject what Bill is saying, but another part of me realizes that maybe I've been hiding from it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turning a blind eye, because how could Travis be that bad?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't come from much.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's always looked out for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Helped me get opportunities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I might not have gotten on my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Treating you like a charity case.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you said you were blasted that night, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a long time ago?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill shrugs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, maybe I've lost it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This place, whatever the hell's going on, maybe it's screwing with my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm telling you this now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch yourself, Danny.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back on things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you've turned a blind eye here and there, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I don't respond, Bill walks to the end of the boat and begins calling his brother's name into the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no answer comes, save the thunder and flashes of lightning.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's dark now, and it looks like everyone's more or less accepted that the best thing for now is to sit tight and wait for first light.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I leave him to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I go below deck, Travis hops up to greet me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Danny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I've been flying off the handle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just really freaked out to tell you the truth, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man, I hear you.
[SPEAKER_00]: What were you in build talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's just worried about Brian.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bet he's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he got out and he's getting help or something, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey man, let's just chill for a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really just need to sit down for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, sure man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's been so crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He retreats to the other side of the cabin, while I sink against the wall and pull my legs to my chest to rest my head on my knees.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe we're just sitting here in this weird boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian was right, probably the old guy's place, and now he's dead and we're just sitting here in his spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't help but feel like we're sitting in a tomb in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I rest my head, I look off to the side at the swirling markings on the wall, and my mind begins to drift.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, my body feels like a sack of bricks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I just need to lie down for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Danny!
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm just trying to look out for us, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, but I don't look at him when I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realize I'm afraid he might see the lie in my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, keep up, Danny!
[SPEAKER_00]: We jet across the water, sun sparkling along the rippling surface of the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cut this way in that, riding behind Travis, trying to overtake him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He veers to the left and I follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: A speedboat races out in the open water, and I know he's aiming to hit their wake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hit the throttle hard, and pull around him as we make contact.
[SPEAKER_00]: The waves are bigger than I expect, and at my speed, I'm launched up, and for a stomach tickling moment, I'm airborne.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I come down, it's harder than I expect.
[SPEAKER_00]: The handlebars buck and fly from my hands as I overbalance and tumble over the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully, I'm wearing the strap which pulls free the safety and hard stops the jet ski motor.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I break the surface, I see Travis looking back at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can see him laughing and shaking his head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I smile and flip him the bird just as he cuts out of sight and into a cove as I swim back to the jet ski and try to clamber up it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slick with water and still bouncing from the residual wake, it takes me a minute to finally remount.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Travis is back and exploding around the corner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, Danny.
[SPEAKER_00]: He shouts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turn around.
[SPEAKER_00]: We gotta go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's up?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just remember they want us back at a certain time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm confused.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember being told to head back at a certain time, and we've not been on the water for even a full hour yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I figure Travis probably needs to piss or something, and suddenly I'm wondering if he should even be driving that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Haven't he started drinking early today?
[SPEAKER_00]: As I crank the engine, a sound comes to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's indistinct, maybe coming from around the bend and in the cove.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shouting maybe?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder fleetingly if there's a party barge docked back there, but Travis zips back by me with a... Come on, dude, let's get on it!
[SPEAKER_00]: And I go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis's dad looks surprised to see us back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thought you said you needed us back at a certain time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis says, ah, he replies, must have slipped my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is close to lunchtime, so that's all well and good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I'm glad to see you boys are okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph just gave me a ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some kind of commotion down his way by that cove on the south side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably best stay off the water for now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You boys are back early.
[SPEAKER_00]: The voice comes from behind me, and I know it is Travis's mom, but something isn't right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel her approach, but find myself unable to turn and look at her.
[SPEAKER_00]: A steady drip, drip, drip comes to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: As of water droplets on the tile floor, then comes a smell that wrinkles my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: It puts me in mind of a fish market of writhing things in deep places.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad to have you both here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her voice, it's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's right behind me, practically pressed against me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I start to protest, ask what she's doing, but her cold breath over my shoulder freezes me in place.
[SPEAKER_00]: To my shock, I feel her embracing me, her touch, frigid and wet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I start awake, flinging my hands about.
[SPEAKER_00]: A steady drop of water leaks onto my nose from above.
[SPEAKER_00]: A chill breeze seeps through small cracks in the boat and twists around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: All at once it comes back.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old man, the storm, the conversation with Bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of Bill, he seems to have stayed above deck despite the weather.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it's for the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and Travis would be at each other's throats.
[SPEAKER_00]: As for Travis, he seems to have passed out like me snoring across the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: No light filters down the stairwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've no clue if it's the middle of the night, or if the lingering storm has smothered any morning light.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of my phone left in the dry bag in my jet ski's storage compartment, and almost go to retrieve it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think again if those stealthy shapes in the water that had pursued us back here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Besides, what's the use?
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't Travis say he lost all service?
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's something more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm starting to wonder if it attempts to leave the area, put some kind of target on your back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I keep thinking of Brian persistently waiting his way down river before all hell let loose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I find myself again desperately hoping against all my instincts to the contrary that he's okay somewhere out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: A book with a blank cover lies beside me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I recognize it is the same one from the table in the center of the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same one Brian had been thumbing through.
[SPEAKER_00]: wanting to occupy my mind, I pick it up and start turning the pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like some sort of journal or log, looping handwritten script fills the first pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the language feels archaic, and I have trouble making out the spidery script, but best I can tell, a good deal of it is probably some kind of captain's log mixed with journal entries.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I flip deeper, a passage jumps out at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dead lies the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: No wind for Nion a week now, and so we are a drift.
[SPEAKER_00]: The men grow ever more desperate, and there is talk of drawing lots soon to begin the tradition of the sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cry out to God night after night, and there is only the silence on the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: My eyes scan further.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only I remain.
[SPEAKER_00]: God forgive me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard the others discussing how they would not draw more lots, and they plotted that they might come upon me in my sleep, once the last of the long pork is gone, to have me as the next meal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I turned their plans against them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the dark of the night, I crept to their quarters and slashed the throat of each man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, God, how they looked upon me aghast, as I smothered any cries they might make.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I know not what I have gained except a small prolonging of this miserable existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps it matters not if God would forgive me this thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: My prayers fall on deaf ears.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inthrolled, I turn the page.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am delivered, though not, I think, by the God at whom I've cast my ceaseless prayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: but perhaps a god nonetheless.
[SPEAKER_00]: I abandoned the ship for this, a vessel which loomed out of a fog that had settled upon this lonesome and dead stretch of sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: A vessel which, by some force unknown, has carried me to land and somehow to this place cloistered in the marshes, a vessel which brought me unto her.
[SPEAKER_00]: How shall I speak of her?
[SPEAKER_00]: She is terrible and yet wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: She spoke to me when I set foot upon this deck, though she had no voice of her own.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: She spoke to me in the crash of the waves, the cry of the goal, in the wind which whips the surf and makes it heal.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says I am hers.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says I will love her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says I must love her, less she pour out her wrath.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says I must choose, and yet the choice has been made for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tells me it can be no other way.
[SPEAKER_00]: One must always stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once she says, the people of this land offered up one of their own to fulfill the role.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now we have battered and beaten them, taken their land, and in so doing, profane this sacred right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now it falls to me until such a time as another comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says it must be written, a record of the new way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot go.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says I will love her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She will not let me go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh God, she will never let me go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I flipped further into the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart drumming ever faster as the boat creaks around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here again, a variation of the same story, but the script is different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And beyond this, another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each one, it's own tail with the same ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each with language less archaic than the one before.
[SPEAKER_00]: And beyond these, empty pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: She will never let me go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I throw the book away.
[SPEAKER_00]: As with everything else, my mind doesn't want to reckon with those words.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with all the weirdness, I'm tipping past the point of denial.
[SPEAKER_00]: I may not understand the exact mechanics of things, but a strange picture of our situation begins to crystallize.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never let go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis groans across the room and stirs.
[SPEAKER_00]: It lighten.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the weirdest dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't respond, but make for the stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to get bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: For better or worse, we need to have a group meeting about the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: A small part of me whispers to keep the book to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: What if we can get out?
[SPEAKER_00]: It says.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as one stays, maybe there's a chance to get out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I won't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not even to Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though on that second point, I find I'm no longer entirely sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: My talk with Bill has been rattling around inside my head all night, and I'd had a weird dream too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about Travis and maybe that lake trip his family took me on a few years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have time to dwell on it, because as I go above deck, there is no trace of Bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rain has finally stopped, and an early morning gloom fills the marsh.
[SPEAKER_00]: fog swirls across the deck, and despite walking up and down the length of the old boat multiple times, I find no trace of my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I start shouting his name into the gloom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis emerges from below and pushes past me to look over the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: He slams a fist down on the railing and starts pacing the deck while running his fingers through his hair.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look over the side, and a twin spike of panic fills me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The jet skis are trashed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where they once floated in the reeds, they now sit half submerged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Large holes gouge their hulls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pieces of their frames have been broken and torn away.
[SPEAKER_00]: That crazy bastard!
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis says.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did he do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Run off and try to strand us!
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, all three skis are still here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like he took one and trash these two.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if he tried to drive off, we'd have heard him cranking the engine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ought to have heard it when he's got torn up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And where is he then?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of Bill sitting up here through the lonely night, just waiting for Brian to appear at the edge of the trees while the rain fell, and those weird ornaments of bone and glass clinked around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did he really do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to conjure a scenario.
[SPEAKER_00]: I imagine something within Bill breaking, him deciding to make for the closest shore to look for his brother, while destroying the skis is some kind of crazy retribution against Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: wish I could believe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thing is, wherever Bill has gone, I don't think he's capable of doing that kind of physical damage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, bigger questions remained.
[SPEAKER_00]: Questions neither of us seem interested to explore if Bill hadn't done it, what had, and had it done the same to Bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: a new image comes to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill keeping his vigil, the rain falling, all dark, save the electric glow of lightning flashes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then barely visible in one of those flashes, someone at the edge of the tree line, someone beckoning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I push the image away.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is so fucked man!
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis leans on the railing with his head hanging over the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's happening to us?
[SPEAKER_00]: I glanced down the stairwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can see the book lying there on the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I find myself debating whether to say anything or what to even say.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember the last time we went out riding like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I find myself asking and indicating the busted skis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Few years back, your family rented that lake place.
[SPEAKER_00]: He raises his head.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: The lake trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why he asking about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I look out to the fog shrouded marsh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember how one day there was that accident?
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember it being on the news.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two brothers somehow got their boat overturned, and one drowned, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: He blows out a short breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a while ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I remember something about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Danny, what's up with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you asking about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Your dad talked about it when we got back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I glance at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that true confusion?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is there something more in his eyes?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's just being out riding again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've been thinking about that trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never put it together, but I'm remembering the news footage of the area on the TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cove where it happened was right near where we turned around that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: You wrote over into it after I got knocked off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you got a better memory than me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been drinking that morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Silence for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm suddenly aware of how alone we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wondering how much I really know this person here with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm starting to regret probing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, I say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just had this weird dream about writing jet skis.
[SPEAKER_00]: A nightmare, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably not a surprise, given everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just freaked me out as off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I clap him on the shoulder and offer a half smile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Forget I said anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sense Travis relax ever so slightly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all good, bro.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had weird dreams last night too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah?
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember what about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, nah, not really.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all hazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he doesn't meet my eyes when he says it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the fog starts to lift, we decide to take a chance at making the nearest shore in a bid to get out on foot.
[SPEAKER_00]: The prospect of aimlessly waiting on the boat doesn't appeal to either of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't mentioned the book or its contents to Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: If what the journal had implied is true in some way, if at least one must stay behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: What would Travis do in the face of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I find myself thinking of him snapping and lunging at Brian, like some kind of wild animal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't help but keep coming back to the dream of the lake and bills memory of the half forgotten party.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just not sure of anything anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least in a small turn of good fortune, the water around the boat is no more than chest height.
[SPEAKER_00]: And nothing comes biting at us from beneath the murky surface as we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, we clamber up a muddy bank to a dense grove of maritime forest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's try to follow the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis says.
[SPEAKER_00]: That'll help keep us on the right path.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we won't get so turned around or whatever like last time, yeah?
[SPEAKER_00]: I nod.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no better ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's slow going.
[SPEAKER_00]: The twisting trees form a canopy above us, through which the light filters in small beams.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here and there we have to squat under low bowels.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost hard to believe clear sky is only a layer of leaves away, so cave-like is the growth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Bill was talking some shit last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis says after a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't tell me he wasn't he spooked you or something I swear he's just like his damn brother always talking at his ass What did he say Nothing really he was just upset about Brian Disappeared on us just like his brother too Travis moves ahead of me picking his way through a narrow twist of squat trees and
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we, uh, how to get our story straight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our story?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, once we get back, there's going to be questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are the jet skis busted?
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened out there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if Brian or Bill really did make it out, who knows what crazy stuff they've been saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you remember how much Brian was over reacting on the river, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't put it past them to try to pin all this on me on us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're saying we need to lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying we need to think about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll admit it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Weird shit's been happening, or at least it seems like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But none of that's going to matter when we get out.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that's going to matter is what people on the outside think happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got me?
[SPEAKER_00]: I picked through the brush following along behind, but unable to formulate a response.
[SPEAKER_00]: Danny, I'm telling you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to trust each other on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I trust you, man?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I trust you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis stops ahead of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unnatural.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a typical slowing of pace, but a sharp freezing up at my words.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course you can't, Danny.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can always trust me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't I always look out for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I ask you some questions, you'll tell me the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis gives a little laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You in the questions today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you really not remember that day on the lake?
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis' shoulders sagged with a release of tension.
[SPEAKER_00]: He turns to face me with something almost like a relieved smile.
[SPEAKER_00]: This again, for what kind of dream did you have anyways?
[SPEAKER_00]: But like I said, man, I really don't remember any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looks me in the eye when he tells me, holds my gaze.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell if this is a show of honesty or an attempt to appear as such.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember taking Samantha Keys upstairs at Frank's graduation party?
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis Blinks, and I see him involuntarily shift back from me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was she drugged or something?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you got her a little too drunk?
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell are you talking about, Danny?
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis asks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Starting to think you're the one with the weird memory.
[SPEAKER_00]: You weren't even at that party.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill was.
[SPEAKER_00]: There it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew he was talking something crazy to you last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to say, huh?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think he saw?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was blitz that night, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not answering the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: A funny timing, him suddenly remembering stuff now.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, I've done for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Danny, can't you see he was trying to play you, man?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill and Brian.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just want to cover themselves from this whole cluster fuck, and they want you to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they know this is really Brian's fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: His fucking fault for being a drunk idiot and distracting me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't take the blame for this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis, you're not answering the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: His lips turn to a thin line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wait, but no answer is forthcoming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it seems that might be answer enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reminded again of just how isolated we are, and my heart starts drumming.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try not to let the tension filling me show, but I realize my body is prepared to make a mad plunge through the undergrowth if Travis makes another showing like he did on the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I see his eyes, and I realize he's on another planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something is caught his gaze, and he's staring fixedly off to our left.
[SPEAKER_00]: hesitantly, I glance in the direction, and my mouth drops open.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill stares back at us.
[SPEAKER_00]: His head hangs from a low branch at the edge of a clearing, which until now we'd somehow missed entirely.
[SPEAKER_00]: bound by its hair, the head bobs as a slight breeze rustles the branches.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the branches release a squelching sound amid their rustling, I realize where the rest of Bill is hung up throughout the rest of the tree, like a grizzly string of Christmas decorations.
[SPEAKER_00]: All it wants everything else melts away.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two of us stand there without words trying to grasp what we're looking at.
[SPEAKER_00]: Under some morbid compulsion, I draw closer to the scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: Flies buzzed lazily through the gore-bedect branches.
[SPEAKER_00]: The smell sends my guts clenching, and I realize that the other co-burn brother fills the neighboring tree when a gust of breeze spins Brian's severed head to face me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis appears at my side, firm hand on my shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Danny, don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sound of soft crying pulls our eyes beyond the carnage to the small clearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Laying at the center of the clearing covered in the petals of various flowers lies the strange old man.
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes have been closed as has his mouth, and he would almost look like he was sleeping soundly where it not for the ragged scar on his brow and the flattened nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the man is only a minor feature in the tablo, which has our attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: For above him, looms a ragged, dark figure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It bends over the man like a living shadow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Black went hair laying across the corpse's chest as the figure shakes lightly and wimpers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pale hands, long fingered and strangely shaped, fret over the man's tattered clothes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I make to step backwards, my hope to fade quietly and unnoticed deeper into the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I look on, the thing seems to sense my gaze.
[SPEAKER_00]: It raises up, standing to a height which towers above both Travis and myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: From amid its stringy hair emerges a face which matches the fish belly pale of its hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: That face might have looked human, were it not for the flattened nose with its serpentine slits.
[SPEAKER_00]: The flaring gills at its throat and those eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Its eyes don't seem like eyes at all, but rather black sockets avoid.
[SPEAKER_00]: From those sockets, leak endless streams of briny water.
[SPEAKER_00]: ever flowing from those black pits that might as well open upon the bottom of the deepest maritime trench.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm afraid that if I gaze too long into those twin voids, something within me will be drawn in and down, down, down, like a swimmer caught in the merciless grip of the ever circling maelstrom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Its face contorts, small, needle-like teeth bear in what seems as snorled, but which I think is actually an attempt at a sad smile.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing spreads its arms, strands of old cloth and seaweed, which wrap its body draping down like bat wings.
[SPEAKER_00]: As it holds its hands to us palms up, and beckons us closer with its long fingers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only then do I realize those hands are also webbed between each spindly digit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sense Travis about to flee just before the pressure of his hand disappears from my shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all I can do to rip my eyes from the things empty gays and follow after him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing starts up behind us with his high-pitched keening.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the most lonesome sounds I've ever heard, and it makes me pound the sandy ground ever faster.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that the thing is out of sight, I imagine it twisting through the trees after me, long arms allowing it to reach out and grab me with those grasping fingers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We crash on through the foliage, limbs whip at my face and cut at the exposed flesh of my arms.
[SPEAKER_00]: I trip over roots and crash my shins into unseen impediments.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all this is lost to me as I scramble forward, desperately trying to keep Travis in my line of sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the trees give way to a small channel, we don't hesitate to plunge in and wait through the shallow water.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we climb the opposite bank and plunge once more into the brush, I finally hazard a glance back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing is behind us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I plow into Travis, who's come to a dead stop in front of me, and both of us spill to the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only once my momentum has fully been robbed by the fall, do I realize why he's frozen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before us, light dapples down into a clearing, a clearing ornamented by the viscera of our two friends, a clearing in which the thing sits expectantly over the old man's corpse, hands still outstretched and open toward us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis is on his feet in an instant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without a word, he picks a different direction and plows into the trees,
[SPEAKER_00]: Not wanting to be left alone, again, I follow through the grasping branches.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, after some labor grunning, he draws up short.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hardly need to look to know why.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're back at the place we started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like each moment, since we chose to come up this fucking river, round and round and round we go, circling the same inevitable drain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis retreats until the trees blocked the clearing from view before stopping and pacing like a caged animal.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the fuck is that thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it want?
[SPEAKER_00]: In sudden, impotent rage, he stamps down and breaks a fallen branch at his feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: How the fuck is any of this happening?
[SPEAKER_00]: He sinks down and puts his head in his hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stand there looking back toward the direction of the clearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though the thing is separated from me by the low bowels, I can still feel those black sockets boring into me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what they want, what they need.
[SPEAKER_00]: It won't let us leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say it last.
[SPEAKER_00]: No shit!
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean I think I understand what's going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a book on that old boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was some kind of journal, and different people had written in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think each of them got stuck in this place, like us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill and Brian sherdin' get stuck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's because they kept trying to get out or to run from it when it came to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it, I don't know, maybe it pissed it off or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the fuck, Danny?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you saying you know what that thing is?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, not really, but the journals, they all seem to get at the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to believe it, but seeing that thing myself, I think it wants someone to stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Need someone to stay, maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why, but that old guy, I think he was the one here keeping it happier, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he died, it's like a big vacancy sign went up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I think it needs someone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis is quiet for a moment, head still in his hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been holding out on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What didn't you mention any of this until now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of being lost in a marsh is one thing, saying there's a weird sea demon that wants a mate or whatever the hell is on a completely different level.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you have believed it if you hadn't seen the thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: I let the words hang between us, praying my conviction in saying them is enough to mask my true intent in being withholding, and the rapid hammering of my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know sooner or later, it has to come to this moment, and I still haven't figured out what's coming next.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis lifts his head and looks off into the middle distance.
[SPEAKER_00]: It needs one, huh?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what they all seem to get out in the journal, but maybe it doesn't have to be like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we can figure something out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watch Travis trying to work out what sort of gears are turning in that head of his.
[SPEAKER_00]: But before now, I would have said that I could make a good guess at the workings of his mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been one of my closest friends for so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, the workings of his mind might as well have been as inscrutable as the depth of that thing's black-pitted sockets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wondering why I even brought it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I hadn't, what then?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could I bring myself to slip away and leave Travis in my place?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's that he's the only link to some normal sea I have left.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a part of me still isn't willing to accept that maybe I don't know him at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: That part of me still sees my old friend sitting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe I don't know what he sees in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, in the end, I'm just too scared to be left alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing starts up with its keening again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such an awful sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because it grates on my ears, but because it's so mournful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never heard anything as raw and vulnerable as that thing crying over the corpse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow it's the most pitiful thing I've heard in my entire life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something in it calls to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a small part of me almost wants to walk back to that grove to offer some kind of comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's try to go further away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure we can figure this thing out if we stick together.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't think while listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, Danny.
[SPEAKER_00]: The blow catches me as I turn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something feels like a tree branch smacks me in the face.
[SPEAKER_00]: A hot rupture of blood spills from my nose and down my front.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world blinks and I tumble hard onto my back.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a few seconds I lay there stunned, but the blaring alarms in my head hold me to consciousness, and an awareness of the thing not far away sends me scrabbling to my feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see Travis just getting out of sight as he weaves quickly away through the growth.
[SPEAKER_00]: My teeth clench, and I struggle up after him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how he plans to play it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never wished so bad to be wrong about things in my life, but there's no running from it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I plunge after him, the pounding in my head giving way to a silent rage as I tear through the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: I no longer need Travis to answer my questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: After running from the truth, his actions are answer enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can see the shock in Travis's eyes as he glances back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm shocked at how quickly I'm closing the distance.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, I'm not even thinking of that thing behind me, or if it could be pursuing.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that fills my mind is that cheap fucking shot he just took, and how he was going to try his look at leaving me while he ran.
[SPEAKER_00]: It numbs the throbbing of my busted nose, and fills my legs with a renewed burst of adrenaline as I push on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see the trees open once more upon the narrow body of water we'd crossed earlier, and Travis pauses.
[SPEAKER_00]: He spins with a… wait a second, Danny!
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I plunge into him, and send us both rolling down the muddy bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mud sucks at my hands as I try to rise and pull free.
[SPEAKER_00]: Travis gains his feet and turns on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before he can make another move or say another word, I pull free enough to launch myself a short distance, far enough to take him low in the legs and send him down into the shallows.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kicks at me, one foot cracking me firmly in the face, and further breaking my bleeding nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: By hardly feel it, and grab his leg drawing him to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He leans up, swinging it my head, and trying to push me away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I respond with wild, unfocused swings of my own, until one connects with his jaw, and lays him splashing onto his back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm thinking of that newscast, after our day on the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of how they said the boat in that cove, right where we'd been, had collided with something, and how one of the people drowned tangled in fishing line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of Travis taking a half-conscious, cement the keys to one of the upstairs bedrooms at Frank's place.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of what happened to her later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of Travis dodging DUIs and any other inconvenience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think of myself, blind to it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on top of him now, and I drive his head back with another punch, screaming in articulately about how he tried to leave me behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sputters, floundering in the shallow water by the bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing I know, I'm clutching it as throat and pressing down, down, down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kicks his legs, beats sat me with his arms, but I've never felt the kind of strength I've gotten my arms now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're only in a few inches of water, but it's enough to cover his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And with my weight pressing on to him, Travis can't move an inch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Soon his eyes are rolling with panic as he strains against my hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bubbles blow out from his mouth and nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's desperately screaming, trying to say something, but I am done listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Soon his blows become little more than feeble slaps.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kicking of his legs turns to spasmatic jerking.
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes stare vacantly up at me, and when I finally release him, he does not rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: All it once, whatever burst of strengthened possessed, leaves me along with my rage.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hands tremble, now released from the effort of keeping their grip, and I stare at them in disbelief.
[SPEAKER_00]: My eyes drift to Travis as he floats in the shallow water.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find my eyes stinging, and I draw my legs up to my chest as I take in rapid breaths.
[SPEAKER_00]: but the heaving of my shoulders quickly turns from that of hyperventilation to that of mad laughter as I look through my blurred vision at the scene before me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm certain that where Travis and I had emerged was at the narrow stretch of water we'd crossed before, but that is no longer the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realize that somehow I'm back at the marshy clearing with its old boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's more, the water has retreated before me, leaving a path of dry earth that winds through the marsh toward the boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the end of the path, standing on the boat's deck, she waits, and sheep beckons.
[SPEAKER_00]: I rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find I can't stop myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe at one time there was a choice to be made, but that time is past.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the choosing is done by another, so I walked toward the boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet while my feet move under a foreign power, my mind still remains my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of Cindy, and her telling me not to go on this trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: The talk of money, though not without merit, was always a front.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the real reason for her objection was that she never liked Travis.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thought almost makes me spit another burst of mad laughter, but it dies as quickly as it comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cindy will be wondering what became of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Told me not to go on a trip, and just like that, I never come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I picture her sitting there, waiting for me to come through the door, or for a call that will never come, I get sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm thinking of all the other people who I'll leave in the lurch, and I want to turn around and make another mad dash for freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I were Travis, maybe I'd rage against the unfairness of it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I'm past the point of thinking in those terms.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this place, there is no fair or unfair.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is only her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm close enough that I can see her clearly as she stands there, webbed hands out stretched to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She waits, and I must go.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that brings us to now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're reading this, God help you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You finding this book means only one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though I'm sure you've put that together by now.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best I can hope to offer which the others in these pages haven't is a small picture of what is to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your body will change, warped by her presence and power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like her, you too will be of the sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, the crabs which took residence in my skin disturbed me, as did the lamprey which coiled itself in my guts.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now I don't mind them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither do I mind the sea grass she weaves in my hair, or the wetness of her embrace.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the changes do not stop there.
[SPEAKER_00]: In many ways, I no longer think the me I once knew remains.
[SPEAKER_00]: My memories of life beyond this marsh fade with every passing day
[SPEAKER_00]: I imagine that half of what drives each of us to write these accounts is a simple grasping after the memories of what once was.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I'm tormented by the fragmenting memories, she wraps me in her slick embrace, and rocks me with the same motions that rock ships the world over.
[SPEAKER_00]: She whispers to me secrets of the deepest places, which I may never tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: In her eyes dwell the souls of Leviathan's, along with all those ever dragged down to their depths.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tells me this too shall pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tells me I will love her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tells me she will never let me go.