Blood Water

CHAPTER 7

A universe of water. The sound was what shocked him most. Above the roar of the current and his own thrashing limbs, there were other sounds – sounds he couldn’t place – sounds that didn’t seem to make any sense. He didn’t know how much oxygen he had in his lungs but it was surely not enough to keep him alive for more than another minute or so. If he’d had more of a warning, he might have been able to take a bigger breath. He refused to believe it didn’t matter any more, that it was irrelevant now. If only he could reach the bank and haul himself out of the raging force that had engulfed him… But that wasn’t his only concern. The thing that was fastened to his face was now moving down over his top lip. He had no idea what it was, or what it wanted, but he wished it would go away.

His lungs were heaving, the pounding in his head was increasing, but he became aware of the bank to his left. As luck would have it, the current seemed to be pushing him towards it; as it came close, he reached out and grabbed a tree root, anchoring himself to it, then pulling himself upwards with every ounce of strength. Up and up, and all at once the dull roar was gone, air and sound exploded around him and he sucked in a huge lungful of air, then another and another; then the water rose up and he got a mouthful of it.

Suddenly the black slug-thing shot into his mouth, making him choke, then clutch his throat; he lost his grip on the root and was pulled back under the water. As he twisted and turned beneath the surface, trying simultaneously to swim to the side and reach into his mouth to find the slug, a strange feeling came over him: a fuzziness, a wave of confusion and something utterly foreign. There was an awful, alien sensation of something moving about in his head, as if someone had reached in a hand and was rummaging around. He was paralysed now, unable to struggle, unable to do anything but drift down towards the river bed, his eyes open, staring, disbelieving, muddy water gushing into his lungs. His head felt like it was expanding, ready to burst at any second from the pressure. Incredibly, however, he didn’t feel like he was dying. Quite the opposite in fact.

The rain let up a little, and James no longer felt he was going to crash at any moment. He slowed down, realizing the lane that led to the research centre would be coming up soon, and kept his eyes on the road ahead. Sean saw it before he did – a huge stretch of water that had collected across the road at the bottom of the hill; it looked deep enough to swallow them whole. James slowed the car further and stopped just short of it.

‘Great. Now what do we do?’

‘We’ve got to go through,’ Sean said.

‘We could get stuck though… Engine could get flooded.’

‘We can’t go back. This is the only way to get home.’

And then, to limit their choices even further, a van drove up behind them, blocking their retreat.

‘Oh well,’ James said, glancing in the rear-view mirror. ‘Here we go.’ He eased the accelerator down very gently and the car started to move forward. At first everything seemed fine: the water wasn’t particularly deep, but then the car seemed to dip down. Sean caught movement to his left, and saw a small grey creature, possibly a squirrel, dart up into a tree beside the road. His head throbbed, and as he looked ahead again he was horrified to see that the water was now rising over the top of the car. He cried out to James, who looked at him as though he’d gone mad.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘What do you mean "What’s wrong"? We’re under water! Look!’

James didn’t seem to understand why Sean was panicking. ‘It’s not that deep.’

‘Not that deep? Are you mad?’ Sean could see floating detritus in the water – leaves, bits of twig, even a crisp packet. Bizarrely, a large fish passed by, gazing through the windscreen at them before swimming on. And then, in an instant, the scene dissolved away and they were no longer submerged but driving through the flood as before.

Sean shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I imagined it… I’m sorry.’

‘Jesus, bro, the sooner we get you back home the better.’

James drove on slowly, still worried that the engine might become swamped and give up. Sean looked behind to see that the van was still there, the driver no doubt waiting to see if they made it through before committing himself. Suddenly the water dropped away, and the car was emerging from it. James accelerated carefully. Minutes later a sign for the Lake Byrne Field Study Centre appeared. They soon reached the small car park, and James swung into his usual space. There were quite a few vehicles parked nearby, though they could see no signs of life and no lights shone inside the building even though it was very gloomy.

‘So what exactly do they do here?’ Sean asked. ‘You never really said.’

‘Oh, you know, we do courses on wildlife and lake stuff,’ James replied.

‘Who are the courses for?’

‘Anyone. We do special weekends for members of the public, but we also do research on the fish in the lake too. That’s what I’ve been helping out with— Hey,’ James said, rushing on ahead of Sean. ‘The door’s open. That’s not right.’

They called through the open door to see if anyone was around. No answer.

‘Doesn’t look like there’s anyone in,’ Sean said. ‘What should we do?’

‘Well, we can’t just stand here and get wet.’

‘What if something’s happened though?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know—’

Suddenly there was a sound like breaking glass from somewhere inside the building.

‘Come on,’ Sean said, starting to turn away. ‘I don’t like this, let’s—’

Another crash of glass. They stood there, unable to move. Finally James pushed the door further open.

‘I don’t think we should go in,’ said Sean.

‘Someone might be hurt.’ James clearly expected him to follow.

Sean had no reply to this, but he still didn’t want to go inside. He had a really bad feeling about the place, but out here he was growing colder and wetter by the minute. He had to get under cover, and if James was determined to go in, maybe it would be all right.