Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

The road disappeared.

The headlights brushed over a black sheet of glass. It was so smooth at first. It seemed to reach into the horizon, that glass, farther than the car’s high beams could ever reach.

The station wagon dipped. It felt like they were on a roller coaster, suddenly plunging forward. The front fender pushed through that blackened glass. The impact thrust Sean forward. He folded over, his head tapping his knees. Without his seatbelt on, Sean tumbled into the footwell, his body slamming against the back of his mother’s seat. He scrambled back up, grabbing hold of her headrest and pulling himself into his seat again. When he looked out the windshield, at the churning shadows surrounding them, they looked like wraiths drifting by the car, swallowing it in a cloud of muck. Sean gasped.

Water. That was water outside the car, he realized. The headlights branched out into the brackish expanse, swirling around the hood.

A boat ramp. The station wagon continued to roll down the concrete slope, forcing its way into the vast expanse of black surrounding them.

The hood was gone. Water lapped at the windshield, slapping against the glass.

The radio was still on.

Every breath you take…

Sean could hear the thin trickle of water reaching inside.

Every move you make…

The water was now in the car. Pooling at his feet.

Rising to his ankles.

Filling up the footwell until he pulled his legs away.

Reaching for his seat.

Mom merely kept her hands gripped on the steering wheel, holding on so tight her knuckles turned white. She pressed her foot down on the accelerator. The car heaved. The engine bay filled with water, muting the motor’s rev.

We’re going to drown, Sean thought. We’re going to drown!

“It’s going to be okay,” Mom said, never looking back. She was still driving through the night, on a highway that led their family to safety. Soon. They would be there soon.

Sean glanced out his window. There was nothing to see but a whirling blackness enveloping the car. Glancing into the spacious rear compartment of the station wagon, he saw the last of the night sky disappear beneath the river’s surface as the water lapped at the glass.

They were underwater now, the entire car submerged. Mom hadn’t moved. She kept on driving, humming along to the song. That was the worst part. The scariest part to Sean.

Hearing her hum.

Sean gripped his window’s handle and started to roll it down. A fresh rush of water smashed against his temple. It smacked his cheek, his ear. The water wanted to come inside.

Coughing, Sean rolled down the window until there was enough of a gap to slip through. Water filled the back seat. The leatherette was slippery, like eel skin.

His body lifted from where he sat, levitating.

When he screamed, water rushed into his mouth. He choked on the cold.

Sean took a deep breath, bringing in as much air as his lungs would allow, and slipped under the water’s surface. It was far too dark in the car to see anything. He had to run his hands over his mother until his fingers eventually brushed against her seatbelt and found the buckle.

Sean pushed the button and—

It wouldn’t unlock. Wouldn’t release her.

Sean pushed harder. Harder. But nothing seemed to work. The seatbelt wouldn’t open.

Mom remained behind the wheel, still driving. Her hair fanned through the water like spaghetti radiating around her head.

Sean’s lungs felt as if they were filled with broken glass. He needed air.

Needed to escape.

His mother never looked back, never turned her head to see her son swim through the cracked window and rise to the surface. She kept driving, driving, running away from those invisible forces closing in. The evil presence that had been chasing them for months. Hunting them down wherever they ran. They would be safe here. They could hide down here. Hide all the way at the bottom of the river with the kelp.

His last image of his mother was of her humming underwater, the thinnest ribbon of bubbles issuing from her mouth. When the song ended in her head, she parted her lips and let the water in.

DAMNED IF YOU DON’T

 RICHARD: 2013

Sean is screaming in the back seat. I wake to his voice, shrieking from the rear of the car.

That’s Sean, isn’t it? It has to be.

Everything inside the station wagon has gone dark. The world beyond the windows has disappeared, lost in churning water.

Mom drove straight into the river. I remember seeing the bridge’s embankment, a rusted guardrail separating the road from the water below. The car smashed through the feeble partition, free-falling through the air before plunging under the water’s surface.

Wait—that’s not how it happened. I can’t fight off the fog enveloping my head. Everything in my body has slowed down. I can feel my blood thrumming through my veins, thickened to a sludge. I can’t lift my arms without straining. It’s all too heavy.

Mom’s head smashed against the windshield. A halo of cracks radiated around her skull, a sunburst, bright and blinding. It stung my eyes to look at her. I watched her skull ricochet off the windshield before my own head met the glove compartment and then—

Then everything went black.

Wait—that’s not how it happened at all.

What’s going on here?

There’s water at my feet. The car is filling fast. The sun is gone, barely reaching through the murky sheen of the enveloping river. The slightest hint of green branches out around us, a forest of stained glass. Light. That has to be sunlight.

I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious. My forehead stings. I can’t see. I bring my fingers to my temple and touch something wet. Blood. There’s blood running down my face.

Is this really happening? Is history repeating itself? Am I watching the movie of my life?

Mom is slung over the steering wheel. Her body is limp, a puppet without a hand to animate her. Her eyes remain open, unblinking, staring at me. She’s not moving. Her breathing is so shallow, if there’s breath