Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Night
With every second that passed, Waverly’s throat got tighter and tighter. No menacing silhouettes were coming down the dock but one could spring out of the cold black thickness at any second.
“Su-Moon, hurry up.”
“I am hurrying up.”
A moment passed.
Waverly kept her eyes fixed on the wooden planks that disappeared into the eerie weather.
A distant light washed through the darkness, faint and vague, bringing a luminescence to the rain.
It wasn’t close but it was something.
Did headlights pull into the parking lot?
“We need to go,” she said.
“One more drawer.”
“Make it quick, I might have seen headlights.”
“Hold on, I found a file.”
A moment passed, then another.
“What are you doing?” Waverly said.
“This is weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“Quiet, let me read.”
Waverly’s chest tightened.
Breathing got difficult.
Suddenly what she feared would happen did happen.
A dark shape came down the dock, hunched against the weather, walking fast but not so fast as to lose a grip on the slippery wood.
“He’s coming!”
There was no time to get off the boat, the figure was that close.
Waverly stepped inside, closed the door and made sure it was locked. Su-Moon already had the candle blown out. Waverly met her there.
“What do we do?”
“Can you swim?”
“No.”
The room had a door at the back wall. They opened it to find a narrow swim platform.
They stepped onto it and shut the door behind them.
The rain assaulted them.
It was a billion frozen needles.
The boat rocked, ever so slightly but enough to indicate that someone had stepped onto the front deck. Waverly checked around the edge of the boat, which stuck out ten feet past the edge of the finger. They couldn’t reach it, not without getting into the water.
A narrow fixed ladder led to the roof.
They headed up, laid flat on their stomachs and got motionless.
Lightning arced across the sky.
The marina lit up.
The water was choppy.
Waverly suddenly had an image of it swallowing her down and sucking the last breath out of her lungs.