Ryan Lockwood - Below

Her mother watched her from a folding beach chair, close enough to grab her if a bigger wave rolled in. Susan Weld had taken a break from her romance novel to watch her daughter enjoy the sand and water. Her husband was snoring loudly under a baseball cap, having fallen asleep immediately once his wife had quit reading.

They had brought Lucy to the beach before, but every time she seemed to be as excited as the first time. Her parents, on the other hand, weren’t big fans of the beach or ocean. What was so great about getting sandy and sunburned, while letting a bunch of strangers look at your less-flattering body parts? Susan had grown restless after an hour of sitting by the surf and repeatedly burying her daughter’s legs in the wet sand. She sighed. Lucy would probably end up being a marine biologist someday, or a pro volleyball player.

“Tom… Tom, wake up, honey.”

“Huh? What? Is Lucy okay?” Tom Weld’s hat fell off his wide face as he jerked upright.

“Lucy’s fine. I need to run to the bathroom. Will you watch her for a few minutes?”

“Yeah, sure.” Tom put the hat back on his head and sat up. “Can you grab me a water, Suze?”

“Sure. Honey, she’s getting too close to the water. Maybe you should move her.”

“I got it under control.” Tom looked at his daughter. “Don’t I, sweetie? Tell Mommy Dad’s got it covered!”

Susan rolled her eyes and rose from her chair. She walked across the broad expanse of gray sand, angling around a group of young men playing volleyball, toward the public restrooms. She wouldn’t be gone long. Public bathrooms were disgusting, especially at the beach.

After sanitizing her hands with watermelon-scented hand gel, Susan headed to a junk-food vendor down the beach and stuffed down a waffle cone dripping vanilla ice cream. She made sure to stay hidden from her husband as she ate. Tom would give her his critical look if he knew she was having sweets, and then she’d get defensive about her weight. With the ice cream on her chin wiped off, she tossed the dirty napkin in a garbage can and picked up the two bottled waters she had purchased, scaring a seagull off the raised planter next to her.

As she headed back toward the water, Susan watched a huge banner passing by in the sky, towed by a comparatively tiny plane flying parallel to the coastline. The beach advertising, Southern California style, not surprisingly showcased another new energy drink. The sky above the plane was an unbroken blue, the air was warm, and the wind was light. Susan was enjoying the beach today despite herself. They would need to go soon, though. They’d been here three hours already, and even with SPF 45 on, Lucy might start to burn.

Weaving through a throng of sun worshippers in board shorts and low-rise bikinis splayed out on their beach towels, she began to wonder if she was headed the right way. Where were Tom and Lucy? She raised her hand to shade her eyes and scanned the beach for her daughter’s bright red outfit. There, just off to the right. She was playing with something in the surf.

In the surf.

My baby is in the water.

Looking past Lucy at the ocean, a sick feeling hit Susan’s stomach as she saw a wave, much larger than the rest, just about to break over her daughter. She dropped the bottled waters and started running.

“Tom!”

Her husband jerked upright in his chair. He looked toward his daughter and lurched awkwardly up out of his chair, falling sideways into the sand. The wave rose higher and began to break behind Lucy.

He wasn’t going to get there in time.

“Help! Somebody!” Susan ran toward her daughter. She was too far away.

As the wave crested and broke, a skinny black teenager splashed over and grabbed Lucy, lifting her above it. The wave crashed against his thighs, but the kid managed to hold Lucy safely over the water.

Susan’s husband reached the boy first. He handed the toddler back to her father, who hugged his daughter against his chest as he thanked the boy. Tom looked toward his wife as she jogged up. She glared at him momentarily, then turned to the boy.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Susan hugged the teenager impulsively, then suddenly felt embarrassed and stepped back to look over her daughter. Lucy was smiling, oblivious to what had almost happened.

“She can’t swim yet. She’s only sixteen months old. If you hadn’t come along…”

“No worries, lady. I got a couple kid sisters. I know how it is.” The teenager smiled and then ran off to join his friends and resume a game of catch, as though he saved kids from drowning all the time.

Susan looked at her husband, who met her eyes for a moment before looking down at his feet. “I’m sorry, Suze. I was watching her the whole time, I just closed my eyes for a second—”

“Save it, Tom. I’m tired of your excuses. You can stay up all night creating complicated software programs, but you can’t stay awake for five minutes to prevent your only daughter from drowning. And this isn’t the first time. We’ve been through this before, and… Tom? Tom, are you listening to me?”

He was staring down at his daughter, his face turning pale. Susan followed his gaze and saw that he was looking at the dark object still in Lucy’s hands. It must have been what she was playing with in the water. Whatever it was, she was now putting it into her mouth. It was V-shaped, and looked sort of like…

Tom swatted the object out of his daughter’s hands just as she was putting it between her lips, and it fell into the sand. Small white nubs of bone gleamed through an opening in the black neoprene. Lucy started crying.

“Tom, what the hell is that?”

“I think it’s part of someone’s hand.”

The diver’s body was in a severe state of rigor mortis.

Curled into a semi-fetal position, the corpse’s arms were frozen in front of it, outstretched defensively, and one of its stiffened legs was suspended well off the sand.

Sergeant Joe Montoya and a deputy stood looking at the body from a short distance away, not wanting to approach it until they were sure there were no tracks or other obvious evidence in the sand. A wave washed up and splashed over the mutilated body, causing it to sink slightly into the beach. If anyone had approached the corpse, their tracks had been washed away. Joe looked up and down the coast. Besides a small group now drawn to the police presence, there was nobody else nearby.

“Thank God it isn’t the weekend yet, or someone would have definitely come across this by now,” Joe said. The body was a good distance from where a family had found the remains of a human hand—maybe half a mile away, where some low bluffs backed the beach at a less-popular stretch of sand.

“Both the hands are intact on this one, sir.” Deputy Dave Smithfield’s voice wavered.

Joe was reasonably sure this was the first mangled corpse the rookie had seen on the job. “Good eye, kid. But the hand was from an African American kid. This corpse appears to be Caucasian. It looks like we’ve got more than one corpse to ID.”

“The sharks really got into this one.”

“Remember to breathe, son. Through your mouth.” Joe swept the scene with his eyes a final time. “I think we’re safe to approach now. Let’s go get a better look, but be careful where you step. And remember, Smithfield, keep your eyes open for evidence.”

“Yes, sir.”

Joe stepped closer to the body, which was turned away from him, toward the water. There was something overly familiar about the matted grey hair of the corpse, which was encased in a black wet suit and bore a single fin on one foot. Joe had a bad feeling. He knew that Steve Black and a group diving with him had all been reported missing a few days ago, their boat found anchored many miles from the coast. He didn’t care for Steve, but the guy was Sturman’s friend.