It was darker than the eye of midnight, its skin glistening as the water rolled away from it. It rose, shunting the sea aside as its tentacles, easily two-hundred feet long, their number beyond counting, thrashed the air. It body was torpedo-shaped, two slits on its closest end blasting air and mucus in a wave of air that smelled of dead things decaying in some forgotten place. A hundred, or a thousand, fins spread from its sides between the tentacles, shaking off garlands of seaweed and two hooked barbs that wouldn’t have fit on my boat appeared, shining white in bright contrast to its black body near its front. A great flap of skin slid back and a single eye easily fifty-feet in diameter gazed down with liquid malevolence. I still cannot say what color it was since there’s no name for it any language. It was painted of malice and age, and of some horrible, ancient knowledge. I was pinned beneath its stare, its utter and tangible hatred so thick it choked me.
I lost consciousness then. There was nothing for it, my mind could absorb no more and I fell to the wet sand that normally was always covered by the sea. The returning water awoke me and now I know that I was only unconscious for seconds, perhaps a minute. The water rushed over me and I spluttered as it closed over my head and I struggled for the surface, pawing at the ground below me. I gained my feet and turned, coughing out the sickening taste of saltwater.
A ridge of sea that would have capsized a thirty-foot sailboat was cutting away from the cove. A fin so tall it would have blocked the sun had it been shining, rose from the crest that was being upraised by the thing’s passing. And I saw then that what I had seen rising from the water had only been its head. The disturbance of water hid, I was sure, miles of the thing from the deep, its length and vastness beyond comprehending. Beside it a miniscule trail slashed the water where something much smaller swam, the movement of whipping tendrils barely visible through the rain as they headed further out to sea where the depths became deeper and deeper.
And then they were gone and I slept.
~
That was fourteen years ago this fall. As I write this I sit on my front porch and look out at the flatness of the Kansas field before my small house. Two miles to the south rests a marker that signifies the very geographic center of the United States. It is equally as far as I can get from either ocean that flanks the country and most days it doesn’t rain, which is good.
You see I can’t stand the rain. Water in general for that matter. I have a feeding tube that I put down my throat twice a day and pump fifteen ounces of water through since I gag whenever it touches my tongue. I hate everything about it, the taste, the texture, how it moves. There’s also a port I had placed permanently in my arm that I hook up to an IV on days when I can’t get myself to use the feeding tube. I bathe with baby wipes, tolerating a shower only once a month, and never a bath. Never a bath.
I love the dry reaches of Kansas and how the sun seems to shine longer than anywhere I’ve ever been before. I know the days don’t really hold more hours of light here, I suppose it’s the lack of trees and hills that create the illusion, but I’ll take it.
Because the nights are hard.
When the dusk begins to crawl toward my house across the land and the shadows lengthen in the fields, each blade of grass and every stalk of wheat seem to have a secret. And I already know too many secrets. I lock all the doors and windows then as the day dies outside and I turn on every light in the house. I’ve had extra installed in each room to dispel every inch of darkness.
And I try to sleep, but the dreams come for me when I do.
Dreams of sinking down through water the color of ink, so black you can’t see your hand before your face. The water crushes me and there is no air to breathe, but I don’t perish. I fall into an abyss where something waits. I always awake screaming before it touches me because I know that it will turn me over and show me. Show me its unblinking eye again. And what’s worse, I know she’ll be there beside it.
I’ve had a lot of time to think and some would say that it wouldn’t be a good habit to get into considering my situation. But I’ve swam in madness and I’m sure I left my sanity somewhere behind me in the surf of that cove. On days that the sky darkens and the wind speaks of rain, I think about her last words, so full of regret and horror.
It made me. It made me.