literature

Intimidation, Pt. 3 of 9.

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         Walter steered the vessel slowly into another curve, and the group saw the last two people trudging along a much wider muddy shore soon.  Nadine looked exhausted, and Jack helped her stand again after she fell in the knee-deep black paste.  Their trail of tracks in it indicated a laborious struggle since before Iris was rescued, and they promptly raised their arms and waved.  Other than being wet and soiled, both appeared fine.  The problem was that the boat could not be brought any closer than about fifty meters to them in its loaded condition.  

         Jack nearly lost his footing twice after they signaled him to come out.  He held her left hand most of the way next to better the balance for both, but when the water was almost waist-deep to make them more weightless, their holds failed.  The unstable foundation shifted under their feet, and they toppled forward into the murky but refreshing water.  The current of the channel had eroded the shoreline on the other side of the peninsula and deposited the free silt and dead organic matter to their location, and instead of standing up and fighting through it more, they swam the remaining twenty meters to the boat arduously to utilize their buoyancy and clean themselves well.

         The water was barely over five feet deep beside the boat, but they were almost winded upon reaching it and had to rest shortly.  The stuffy air, in addition to the hindering environmental circumstances, made their efforts more difficult; Doreen knew about how they felt.  After a couple of minutes, Russel helped Jack onto the deck still panting, and Elaine went to assist Nadine.  Despite her fatigue, she did a bob behind him and dunked herself a second time by the stationary vessel much longer, to capture the attention of the others and tweak their curiosity.

         Nadine forcefully expelled most of her air through her nose fast and squinted at the many bubbles that burst forth out of her nostrils, before her muscles totally relaxed.  Her knees buckled and arms went limp as she let herself sink deeper into the agreeable silence.  Her ears did detect a swishing sound in the blurry void all around.  Was is just the noise of her pulse in her inner ear, or was it a subtle whispering call that challenged her to breathe in or come closer?  She pondered it for some seconds and wanted to discard the filmy dress caressing her smooth soft skin.  She also even willfully gulped the water once and again in response.  Then, there was no more pain, until a hand from above pulled her upward sharply by her hair.  

         She uttered a loud grunt into the soothing water with her remaining air and jerked free of the hold at the surface.  While she coughed and sputtered, Russel looked at her beside the bewildered farsighted woman and said, "Are you alright there?  If you like this dangerous water so damned much, we could leave you in it and move on."  

         She also looked perplexed.  "I . . . I couldn't help -- nght!  I . . . I'm coming."  

         They took her extended arms and helped her aboard, and she seemed to resist stubbornly and kicked her lovely legs a bit first, as if they were caught in a fine net.

         "Did you see Kathy anywhere by chance?"

         "Kathy?  No, I didn't," she said, still looking flustered.

         "Oh, shit!" he replied quickly, and put his hands up.  "Something must have got her by the way she sounded in those tall trees before."

         He exhaled loud in despair, and Doreen looked solemnly downward at the blank gray-green deck in front of her boots and said, "Sounded for sure like she was way up in them if you ask me, man."  

         He turned toward her and appeared more frustrated, but Maxine nodded affirmatively at him with her pretty eyes agape and emphasizing truth.  "Well, a fat lot of good that'll do her now, or help us.  Right?"  he said.

         "Just thought you'd want ta know, Dude."  

         Russel walked carefully away from them and sat in one of the six passenger chairs nearby.  Elaine went back in hers, as Nadine crawled beside a large cooler for a better-tasting drink, and Jack regained his breath and said, "We lost so many . . . good people here since we went into that weird fog and picked . . . Clara out of the sea.  I think I'm beginning to get used to being around death already."

         "Well, be glad you never experienced it yet," Russel replied.  "I've come close to that on enough occasions in my world too."

         The retired professor bolted.  "Who did you say?  Clara?"

         "Yeah.  So, what?"

         "Did she have long dark hair and big eyes?"

         "Sure," he said.  "She was pretty tall too.  Why?"

         "Clara is the source of our problems.  She is the ri in human form and . . . mistress of a sort of this place."  

         "A what?"  

         "How did you know what she looked like?  Was she really the 'date' you said you had last night after all?"  

         "Yes, Elaine, and you thought I was just being silly again."

         "Well, good grief!  It was the way you looked and sounded before we got here -- so unbelievable."

         "I can't swallow that supernatural transformation shit, part-human stuff and all.  It's too . . . unbelievable.  The woman swam out out to us probably to get away from here and drowned with Tony, Dorothy, and the others when our yacht struck that reef.  Simple.  The person who you saw had to be someone else, a close look-alike."  

         "I wouldn't doubt it -- if she assisted your companions to drown in some way.  She told me she could do things beyond my imagination and live forever in this place."

         "You never answered my question, Stanson," Russel said.  "What the fuck is a . . . ri anyway?"  

         "Clara in her other real and most deadly form in short.  I have sketches of it back home, and that young girl, Samantha, saw it and told us how to get probable access to in here."

         Nadine's face came alive with surprise.  "Really?  So, she did make it out safely!  How?"

         "I don't know.  We couldn't convince her to come with and show us exactly.  She looked pretty roughed up in the hospital, and I had to ask Clara in a more . . . convincing way to open the portal for us."  

         "Maybe she was swimming out to the fog to get through it and into our world for some reason.  Perhaps, we should go in the same direction with this boat instead of moving further in toward that strange light we first saw to escape this place," she suggested.

         "I don't think we'd get out to it or even near it with our load and amount of fuel.  The sea is a lot rougher than this sheltered stream, and if the stuff brought us through time and space like I believe by the looks of things, this place could be the size of a state, a continent, or encompass the whole planet."  

         "So, we'll never get out the same way we randomly came in?  That's real nice to hear," Russel said.  "I guess that makes the light source our only choice of where to go then."

         "Right.  It doesn't look like any of you found anything else positive in here to do that yet.  What you saw would indicate we could be near the center or origin of this place, but I wonder why."

         "If that's the case, whatever is there can't be vulnerable or weak, Robert.  Nor can we thus be much of a threat to it."

         "But she said we and the others before us were threats to her security last night, Elaine.  Why, you know?"  

         "Maybe, she needs something unknown from one or all of us, and we're being tested by her, it, or both here in many ways to find out exactly what."  

         "I'd prefer to use our threats as a combined bargaining chip to get us out of here alive before she makes that discovery there," the detective firmly said.  "We weren't asked to be part of this deadly game or her selective experiment.  So, I say we let her know we're not guinea pigs first when she shows up."  

         Russel quickly gave the two prostitutes a stern look to prevent them from breaking out into any laughter after making the crude analogy, but they were not thinking of returning a supplementary remark because Iris held their attention.  She stared ahead as if in a trance and had tears streaming out of her eyes again.  Robert admired his display of confidence but could only guess how much courage each member of the group would have in resisting the ri in its indigenous environment.  The detective already presented himself as a person not to be easily disputed with, and instead of saying that it was being underestimated by him, he instructed Walter to put the boat in motion.  He had a strong feeling the large cantankerous man would eventually see Clara's power and be made considerably more humble.


Continued to Pt. 4.      
Completing the group and regards to "Clara." 
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