Diverse Reasons (Patreon)

Diverse Reasons

Rocky Petersen drifted through the water like a black ghost. The inky depths of the cold and desolate cove off the coast of Maine didn't let enough light penetrate to even show the shocking-blue-and-orange safety chevrons on his wetsuit.

He liked the darkness. He kept his underwater torch off as long as he could, letting his eyes adjust. When he did turn the sealed beam on, it lanced into the murk, showing the craggy walls of the sinkhole at the bottom of Pewoq Bay and not much else.

Rocky checked his depth gauge. He always knew how deep he'd descended at any moment, an important safety rule. Just like always knowing where his diving partner was. Except today he hadn't brought a diving partner. It wasn't a good idea normally to dive without a partner but Rocky didn't know anyone he would trust enough to go on this dive with him.

He allowed himself to drift lower, his negative buoyancy just enough to carry him down another few feet. A flick of his flippered feet would take him out of the darkest part of the sinkhole if he needed to escape. Unlike some waters, this part of the coast of Maine had no large predators or dangerously toxic sea life. And he'd have to stay longer than he had air for to worry about the tidal bore that could trap him under the stony overhangs or batter him on the rocks.

He played his light in a pattern, a patient search spiral. He'd seen something when he'd been down here before. Something he hadn't told the other divers about. Something he wanted to see again, by himself.

His light showed rocks and shells, crabs and flatfish and occasionally caught the gleam of something else. Something shiny. So far, he hadn't found what he had come looking for--every sparkle and glisten had turned out to be fish or rock.

Then he had it, what he'd seen before. Metal. And really, after lying in this water for perhaps years or decades, what metal could it be that still gleamed and sparkled? Gold.

* * *

She pulled herself out of the icy water, almost more dead than alive. The wetsuit didn't fit, she'd lost the tanks and the belt because they weighed too much and the flippers had simply fallen off because of poor fit. She lay on the dirty wet sand, gasping. She threw up a mouthful of water and coughed until her ribs hurt. Then she lay in the too big, ill-fitting wetsuit until her teeth chattered.

"Have to get warm," she told herself. She struggled out of the suit, finally standing up, naked and exhausted. The late afternoon summer sun didn't feel warm at all and a damp, cold wind blew in over the sea.

Her wet blonde hair clung to her skull, showing off its delicate shape. Her narrow shoulders sat square above generous breasts, slender waist, wide hips; long legs that showed muscle under a smoothing layer of feminine softness. Above the shoulders, her symmetrical, oval face might have been beautiful if she didn't look half-drowned. She hugged herself and shivered, wondering vaguely if she would actually care if anyone saw her standing naked on the beach. Her sea-gray eyes took in the scene, looked down at herself, then back up.

No one saw her, the deserted sand had nothing on it but herself, her discarded suit, wet rocks and shells and wetter clumps of seaweed.

Ninety yards away, out in the middle of the little cove, a small cabin cruiser displayed a diver's flag. She doubted her strength to swim to the boat, she turned instead toward the rocky cliffs surrounding the little beach. "It'll have to be the highway," she said. She removed the detachable sleeves from the tunic of the wetsuit and pulled it back on. It hung on her so long it became a rubbery mini-dress.

She turned away from the tidal cove and started looking for a way to climb the cliffs. She didn't want to admit the truth, she wouldn't willingly go back into the waters of Pewoq Bay for all the sunken gold in the world. She crunched across the sand, barefoot. The rocks looked sharp but she knew that in less than four hours, the incoming tide would wipe out the little strand.

She couldn't wait that long and she didn't want the water to touch her again. She found a likely looking path and began to climb, leaving blood on the rocks where they cut her feet.

* * *

The oddly dressed barefoot blonde attracted Philip Rodney's attention. He'd have had to be blind to miss those legs, he thought. But what the heck was that lumpy dress-like thing she wore? He slowed the big rig a bit, checking his mirrors for following traffic even though he knew there wasn't any. He got the tractor and trailer stopped about a hundred and fifty yards past the girl in a spot where the gravel apron of an inside curve left him enough room to get out of the traffic lane.

She'd started jogging toward him before he got stopped. He set his brakes and flashers and climbed down from the cab to motion her on. He still couldn't figure out what it was she wore; as she got closer he decide that it looked like the hide of the top-half of a very black man. No, that can't be it, he told himself. He reflected for a moment on the thought that Stephen King didn't live all that far away then dismissed the macabre images that suggested.

The blonde ran well, head up, arms swinging, long legs reaching for a sprinter's stride. Watching her run, Phil felt Little Rodney stiffen inside his pants. Down boy, he told himself. Nobody runs barefoot on a highway in Maine in late April without being in a world of trouble. What sort of trouble? he wondered.

As she got closer he saw the desperate fear on her face, the exhaustion and determination. He ran to meet her instead of just waiting. Thirty yards behind the truck, she collapsed in his arms, murmuring, gasping, "Help. Ride. New York."

"You're in luck," he said. "That's where I turn around." But he had to gather her into his arms to keep her from collapsing. Her lightness surprised him, from a distance she had seemed tall but up close he found she couldn't be more than average height for a woman, perhaps a bit smaller. 

The dress-like thing she wore turned out to be the top half of a man's wetsuit. Very curious, he thought, as he loaded her limp body into the cab and belted her into the shotgun seat.