Read Online Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set by Scott Nicholson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Scott Nicholson
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waves.
She stood in the rocking boat, all grace and glory and the deepest beauty ever crafted. Without a word, she dove into the sea.
I shouted, “I love you,” but I don't know if she heard me.
I waited several minutes that seemed hours, fighting the currents, watching for her to surface. The lightning struck again, and in its luminance, I saw that the clipper and rescue boats were gone, victims of the callous ocean. I imagined that each flash of foam, each breaking wave, was the lace of Mary's dress.
But she didn't appear. I battled the oars and clawed my way toward shore, though I lost my sense of direction. All that remained was to row and row, to drag the foundering boat through the sea that desperately wanted to swallow it.
The storm soon dwindled and died, and I found myself on the sand. As I coughed the salt water from my lungs, the east glowed with the pink of dawn. I struggled to my hands and knees and looked across the bay. No boat, no wreck, no Mary.
I hauled myself back to the house where I was staying. It took me many minutes to navigate the stairs, then I finally made it to my room and my chair and my high window. I took up my post, a watcher, a lighthouse keeper for the dead.
Three days, and still I keep my post.
I hope the boatman has given up on me. As much fear as filled his eyes when he hinted at the island's secrets, I don't think he even came ashore. I wonder if he will report my absence, or if he has his own orders, his own obsessions. It may take a week or more before anyone finds me.
Plenty of time for her to find me first, if she so desires.
Desire is an odd thing, a destructive thing, a strangely beautiful thing. Perhaps that is the lesson of this tale, the one that has replaced the travel article on my laptop. Whoever finds this account can make of it what they will. For the story was written many decades before, the ending the only thing left in the balance.
The ending.
I hear her now, below me, her footsteps as graceful as the rhythm of the sea. She climbs a winding stair, closer now.
Or perhaps it's only the wind creaking ancient wood.
I don't know which I dread the most.
Her arrival in lace and deceived rage?
Or her never arriving, never again granting me a glimpse of her everlasting and non-existent beauty?
I can almost hear her now.
Almost.
THE END
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MUST SEE TO APPRECIATE
This was the part that Reynolds hated the most.
The deal was so close he could almost smell it. The fish was nibbling, practically had the worm between his nubby gums. Reynolds had wowed the mark with the double bay windows, the parquet flooring, the loft bedroom with skylight, and the view of the Appalachian Mountains stretching a blue hundred miles in the distance. Custom cabinets and a cherry stair railing hadn't hurt, either, and the deck was wide enough to field a baseball game. Surely that was enough to convince anybody that this twenty-acre piece of real estate and 7,200-square-foot floor plan was the steal of a lifetime, especially at the sacrificial price of four hundred grand.
But the mark wanted to see the basement. They always wanted to see the basement. It figured. Reynolds was stuck handling the only haunted house on the local market, and these idiot buyers didn't make the job any easier.
“The bulb's burned out in the basement, David,” Reynolds said. “Had the caretaker up here the other day, and said he'd get around to changing it. You'd think he'd carry one in his truck, you know it? Good help is hard to find around these parts, David.”
Maybe he shouldn't have said that last bit. This buyer was from Florida, and might think that poor work habits were an Appalachian trademark. Reynolds looked David in the eye and smiled. It was Reynolds' plastic smile, the closer smile, the glib smarmy hypertoothiness that he'd learned in salesman school.
The man reached into his back pocket and
She stood in the rocking boat, all grace and glory and the deepest beauty ever crafted. Without a word, she dove into the sea.
I shouted, “I love you,” but I don't know if she heard me.
I waited several minutes that seemed hours, fighting the currents, watching for her to surface. The lightning struck again, and in its luminance, I saw that the clipper and rescue boats were gone, victims of the callous ocean. I imagined that each flash of foam, each breaking wave, was the lace of Mary's dress.
But she didn't appear. I battled the oars and clawed my way toward shore, though I lost my sense of direction. All that remained was to row and row, to drag the foundering boat through the sea that desperately wanted to swallow it.
The storm soon dwindled and died, and I found myself on the sand. As I coughed the salt water from my lungs, the east glowed with the pink of dawn. I struggled to my hands and knees and looked across the bay. No boat, no wreck, no Mary.
I hauled myself back to the house where I was staying. It took me many minutes to navigate the stairs, then I finally made it to my room and my chair and my high window. I took up my post, a watcher, a lighthouse keeper for the dead.
Three days, and still I keep my post.
I hope the boatman has given up on me. As much fear as filled his eyes when he hinted at the island's secrets, I don't think he even came ashore. I wonder if he will report my absence, or if he has his own orders, his own obsessions. It may take a week or more before anyone finds me.
Plenty of time for her to find me first, if she so desires.
Desire is an odd thing, a destructive thing, a strangely beautiful thing. Perhaps that is the lesson of this tale, the one that has replaced the travel article on my laptop. Whoever finds this account can make of it what they will. For the story was written many decades before, the ending the only thing left in the balance.
The ending.
I hear her now, below me, her footsteps as graceful as the rhythm of the sea. She climbs a winding stair, closer now.
Or perhaps it's only the wind creaking ancient wood.
I don't know which I dread the most.
Her arrival in lace and deceived rage?
Or her never arriving, never again granting me a glimpse of her everlasting and non-existent beauty?
I can almost hear her now.
Almost.
THE END
Return to Ashes Table of Contents
Return to Master Table of Contents
###
MUST SEE TO APPRECIATE
This was the part that Reynolds hated the most.
The deal was so close he could almost smell it. The fish was nibbling, practically had the worm between his nubby gums. Reynolds had wowed the mark with the double bay windows, the parquet flooring, the loft bedroom with skylight, and the view of the Appalachian Mountains stretching a blue hundred miles in the distance. Custom cabinets and a cherry stair railing hadn't hurt, either, and the deck was wide enough to field a baseball game. Surely that was enough to convince anybody that this twenty-acre piece of real estate and 7,200-square-foot floor plan was the steal of a lifetime, especially at the sacrificial price of four hundred grand.
But the mark wanted to see the basement. They always wanted to see the basement. It figured. Reynolds was stuck handling the only haunted house on the local market, and these idiot buyers didn't make the job any easier.
“The bulb's burned out in the basement, David,” Reynolds said. “Had the caretaker up here the other day, and said he'd get around to changing it. You'd think he'd carry one in his truck, you know it? Good help is hard to find around these parts, David.”
Maybe he shouldn't have said that last bit. This buyer was from Florida, and might think that poor work habits were an Appalachian trademark. Reynolds looked David in the eye and smiled. It was Reynolds' plastic smile, the closer smile, the glib smarmy hypertoothiness that he'd learned in salesman school.
The man reached into his back pocket and
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