Water Page 3

contraption. Naomi put more effort into it , wrenching all the way back. The generator roared to life. Releasing it, she wiped the grime from the gauge. The tank was nearly full. It would last her for a while if she was careful. Naomi left the shed, wondering if her fears were real or imagined. It was all too easy being alone to conjure up fears.

  A woman screamed. 

  Naomi heard and ran to the cliff's edge, thinking a late night swimmer from the village. A tourist maybe caught in a powerful midnight tide.  

  She stopped and stared.  

  Something moved in the moonlight, bobbing up and down like a drowned swimmer. She was painfully reminded of a body she had seen once floating in a canal. That person had bobbed up and down, swaying a little with the force of the water. But that person had been long dead, bloated. Gummy whitish green skin with a powerfully foul stench arising from the distended belly. There had been no life to its movements, no purpose behind it.  

  This one she saw with horror, crawled through the surf onto the wet sand. The surf came up around it, but with unnatural strength it clawed its way up until the water lapped gently at its heels.  

  Naomi's mind could no more accept its existence then move for in her horrific certainty that she knew the slim figure with its unnatural gait.  

  It moved with a quickness, lurching from side to side, its arms writhing, detaching from the tangled seaweed clinging to its torso. At last, she freed herself from the clutches of terror and ran full pelt back up the path to the tiny house lit from within. 

  Once inside she would be safe. 

  Once inside... 

  She threw the bolt on the door, backing up until the backs of her ankles met a cardboard box lying in the middle of the floor. Naomi quickly shone the flashlight around the room, the beam traveled across the walls, down the wooden floorboards stopping at the open box. 

  She stifled her exclamation, swallowing painfully as her eyes read the title. 

  A single word had been etched onto the top sheet where there had been none before. 

  Gozu. 

  Gozu... 

  The ancient story that terrified the minds of all who read it. 

  It all made sense. 

  Somewhere in the swamp that was Japan, her father had found it and he damned them all the more for it.

  With a wild cry, she snatched up the manuscript, dashing for the kitchen sink. The pages splashed white and creamy in the moonlit darkness. Naomi tore through the cabinets until she found a box of matches. Striking one, the vague scent of sulfur lit the air, a yellow puff of flame glowed against her face. 

  She dropped it. 

  Hungry flame met colored paper. 

  Naomi stared stricken at the photos she'd dumped into the sink. Her mother's youthful face smiled up from the seaside. 

  "What...but I...," 

  I... 

  It...can't be destroyed...?

  Then, she heard it. 

  Hooves striking the floor. 

  One at a time. 

  Footsteps. 

  Hoof steps. 

  She couldn't turn around. 

  It's there... 

  Gozu... 

  Cow head. 

  Oh, Kami.  

  Naomi's eyes were glued to the reflection of the dark kitchen behind her. A monstrous shape arose there, hideous behind reason with the bovine head and liquid black eyes of an animal.  

  She screamed and felt something warm trickle down the inside of her thigh. 

  Naomi was hardly aware of herself as she ran for the door. Her hands scrabbled over the handle, maddening with the lock she had shot home only minutes before. The mesh of the screen tore the skin from her palms. It was almost upon her. She could feel the snort and whistle of its snout as it blew rancid breath from its moist lips. 

  The door gave way; Naomi spilled out into the night, crashing heavily down to her knees. Then, she pushed up, her palms smeary with blood and dirt. Scrambling up to her feet, she dashed around the side of the house veering away from the cliff.  

  Once she dared glance back to the place where light and shadow met, there the living embodiment of her fears lingered in the moonlight, arms wide open to bring her into its embrace of slime and filth.

  Naomi cut across the field, thinking to reach the road.  

  Her foot slid. 

  A moment of breathlessness as her entire weight crashed down, tearing her dizzingly down into a foul pit of rock and slime and wet.  

  Naomi's scream echoed up, deafening her with its last echoes...fading as she plunged into the void. The surface shattered with her descent, smoothing out into a frothy ripple of greenish muck. The crickets resumed their symphony and nothing else moved for a time. 

  - complete in Book 3 Circle 

   Thanks for reading!