Black Water

CHAPTER SEVEN

That afternoon Archie woke again for a few seconds, heard the sounds, saw the faces. So bright here, so loud.

He understood that he was Archie Wildcraft, Deputy 2, Orange County Sheriff's Department. That he was married to Gwen. That they lived in a nice home in the hills. These facts struck him as weightless and breakable.

Then dark water.

An hour later he woke again, to see his father and mother looking down at him. He felt tears burning down his face. His father held his hand and told him that Gwen had been shot that night, too, didn't make it. Archie knew this was what he had lost that would never come back. This was the huge thing that he was missing. Gwen. His wife He couldn't picture her face, exactly. And her absence left in him something very large and very black.

So he swam down, deeper than he'd ever been. Trying to get to the bottom and stay there, to just join the darkness forever. Struggling to get to the depths. Down in the murk, burrowing through the silt and mud and rock, Archie heard the woman's voice again.

Swim. Breathe. Rest. Swim. Breathe. Rest.

The voice had the ring of authority so Archie, a young man use to taking orders, obeyed it. He trusted. He believed. He turned around pushed off the black hard bottom and swam back up.