Swimmer (28 page)

Jennie started to scream, the way she must have screamed when she pretended to find Jane's body in the college pool. Laura tried to be more practical, and distract the Swimmer by slapping at her back with a wet towel, but the Swimmer ignored her, and kept Washington's head under the water, no matter how ferociously he fought back at her. The bath was only six or seven inches deep, because most of the water had been used by the Swimmer herself to take on her physical form, but it was enough for Washington to drown.

‘You have to pull out the plug!' said Michael. ‘She's going to kill him if you don't!'

Jim made his way back to the edge of the bathtub on his knees. The Swimmer didn't even bother to look at him. Her watery shape kept shifting and changing, so that it looked as if it were made out of melting glass – but one thing that didn't alter was the expression on her face. An expression of total, almost maniacal hatred.

Jim thrust his hand into the water and tried to find the plug. But the Swimmer shoved him away with another burst of spray, and when he tried again she shifted Washington sideways so that his head was jammed right on top of the wastepipe. Washington was panicking now. He had run out of air and his arms and legs were jerking convulsively.

‘Get him out of there!' screamed Jennie. ‘Can't you get him out of there?'

Mervyn said, ‘What if we all pull him together? Come on, let's all pull him together!'

But at that moment, something extraordinary happened. Tibbles Two came running into the bathroom – really running, faster than Jim had ever seen her running before. Without any hesitation she jumped up on to the top of the laundry basket and then on to the rim of the bathtub.

‘TT?' Jim called her. ‘What the hell are you—?'

TT flattened her ears back and bared her teeth and let out a vicious, cackling hiss. Her fur stood up on end until she looked as if she were twice her normal size … a hellcat, with glaring yellow eyes. She leaped on to the Swimmer's back, plunging straight into her, her claws scrabbling and scratching at the water as if she thought she could tear it to pieces.

The Swimmer twisted around and lashed out at her – obviously surprised and upset. TT danced around the bathtub, her fur completely drenched, but unstoppably vicious, clawing at the Swimmer's face and arms.

Jim shouted, ‘Michael – Mervyn! Give me a hand here!'

While the Swimmer tried to fend off Tibbles Two, the three of them grabbed hold of Washington's arms and T-shirt and heaved him out of the water on to the bathroom floor. He coughed and coughed and sicked up almost a quart of water, but Jim didn't give him time to lie on the floor and recover.

‘Out of here!
Out!
All of you!
Quick!
'

Michael and Mervyn dragged Washington along the floor and out to the living-room. Jennie, Laura and Susan followed behind.

Susan took hold of Jim's sleeve and said, ‘For God's sake be careful.'

But Jim had already lifted up one of the jerry-cans and was swinging it backward and forward.

In the bathtub, the Swimmer was still furiously struggling with TT. Jim couldn't guess why she was so distressed by a cat, but then TT had never been an ordinary cat, and if cats had a natural antipathy for water, then maybe water felt the same way about cats.

‘TT!' he called at her, and whistled. ‘TT, get out of there – now!'

Usually TT took no notice of anything he said, and he had to throw sneakers at her to stop her from jumping up on the table and sniffing at his dinner. But now she lifted her head and looked at him, and she must have understood how serious he was because she ducked underneath the Swimmer's arm and sprang up on to the edge of the bathtub again, and dropped to the floor. She was so wet that she looked like a skinny kind of rat instead of a cat. Jim gave her a kick and she scurried out of the bathroom door.

Now he didn't hesitate. He turned toward the bathtub. The Swimmer had already half risen out of it, glistening in the colored light that came through the stained-glass window. She smoothed back her hair and then she stood up straight.

Jim knew that he could close the bathroom door and run off and she wouldn't be able to catch up with him. But she would catch him one day, when he wasn't expecting it, and neither he nor his former students could spend the rest of their lives staying away from showers, swimming pools and lakes.

He swung the jerry-can back behind him.

‘
Think what you're doing
,' said the Swimmer.

‘I'm thinking, all right. I'm sorry it has to end this way, but I can't think how else to give you any peace.'

‘THINK WHAT YOU'RE DOING!' roared the Swimmer, and took one fluid step out of the bathtub, and then another.

Jim sloshed gasoline all over her. She lifted her hands to protect her face, and staggered for a moment as if she couldn't see. But the gas immediately ran off her watery skin like scores of rainbow-colored snakes, and puddled on the floor.

He threw more gasoline over her, and this time he took his Zippo lighter out of his shirt pocket and flicked it into flame.

The Swimmer lowered her hands and stared at him. He had been frightened more than once, especially when he had seen spirits and ghosts and supernatural manifestations that he couldn't even begin to describe. But the expression on the Swimmer's face was the expression of death itself. He had never seen anybody who looked so utterly determined to kill him.

The Swimmer took one step toward him and he threw the lighter at her. It fell right through her and clattered on to the floor.

For a fraction of a second, he thought that nothing was going to happen. But then there was a deep, subdued
whooommmphhh!
and a huge ball of orange fire rolled up off the floor and engulfed the Swimmer in flames. The heat was enormous, and Jim had to shield his face with his hand and step back toward the door.

Michael looked around the doorway and said excitedly, ‘You did it, Mr Rook! You did it!'

The Swimmer was standing in the center of the bathroom, both arms raised, while the fire roared all around her with a soft, fierce, funneling sound. Steam began to pour out of her, adding a high, intense hiss. She was evaporating … and Jane's spirit was evaporating with her.

Susan appeared in the doorway too. She watched in silence, with orange flames reflected in her eyes. The Swimmer didn't scream or cry or try to escape. She just stood amidst the flames with steam gushing from her shoulders and the top of her head.

Beneath her feet, the bathroom tiles began to crack with the heat, and there was a sudden snap as the mirror broke. But then there was another crack, and another. Pieces of plaster dropped from the ceiling – tiny fragments at first, but then a large triangular lump, and then another.

‘What the hell's happening?' asked Michael. ‘That's not just the heat, that's—'

This time – with a deafening crash – an immense section of plaster dropped on to the floor, followed by a thumping, tumbling, banging cascade of joists, floorboards and crossbeams.

‘The whole building is falling down!' screamed Mervyn. ‘I told you this was too dangerous! I told you!'

‘Michael – get me one of those fire extinguishers,' said Jim.

‘You're not going to put her out yet?' said Susan. ‘Look at her – she still has her physical shape. If you put her out now Jane's spirit will be able to escape!'

Another section of timber fell on to the bathroom floor. It bounced off the side of the tub and almost hit the Swimmer's legs. Immediately it caught alight, and started to burn almost as fiercely as the Swimmer herself. The whole bathroom was filled with steam and black oily smoke and plaster dust.

‘She's diminishing,' said Susan. ‘Look at her now – she's going down on her knees. We've done it, Jim. We've beaten her.'

But then – from directly above them – they heard an extraordinary splitting, ringing noise. It sounded like an immense church bell cracking. Jim looked at Susan with a frown, but all Susan could do was shake her head.

It was only when hundreds of gallons of water abruptly dropped into the bathroom that they realized what had happened. It crashed on to the Swimmer and instantly extinguished her flames. It surged across the floor, almost waist-deep, and forced Jim and Susan and Michael to stagger back into the living-room. There, it flowed quickly and relentlessly across the carpet.

‘Goddam water tank burst!'

‘How could it burst, just like that?'

‘It's water, isn't it? It's a thinking, evolving, spiritual element! It was protecting its own!'

The bathroom door opened and the Swimmer appeared, as glassy and as perfect as she had been before. She glided across the living-room and out through the open front door, her feet splashing in the inch-deep water that had spread across most of Jim's apartment. She walked out of the open front door and along the corridor. There was no point in trying to stop her. As she walked, she gradually drifted apart, like a passing rainshower, and by the time she reached the head of the stairs there was nothing to show that she had been there except for a trail of wet footprints. Nothing except Jane Tüllett's spirit, which only Jim could see.

She stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, staring back at him.

‘
Now I know how you really feel about me
,' she said. ‘
You're not interested in finding me peace. You're only interested in killing my spirit, just like you killed my body
.'

‘Jane, turning yourself into the Swimmer – drowning people – that's never going to bring you peace.'

‘
Maybe it won't. But it'll bring me satisfaction
.'

With that she vanished down the stairs, no more substantial than a blink of light.

Susan came out. ‘What's happened? She's got away, hasn't she?'

Jim nodded.

‘That's terrible. That was the last thing I wanted to happen.'

‘How's Washington?' asked Jim.

‘He's okay,' said Mervyn. ‘I'm going to take him across to my place and let him lie down.'

‘Thanks, Mervyn.'

‘So what are you going to do?' asked Susan.

‘I'm going to go after Jane. I'm going to try to make a deal with her.'

‘A deal? What kind of a deal?'

‘I'm going to ask her if she'll stop drowning my friends and my students if I let her drown me.'

‘You're out of your mind. You can't do that.'

‘Why not? I've brought nothing but death and pain and grief to everybody who's ever met me. My girlfriend doesn't want to marry me, my head of department is glad to see the back of me, even my
cat
doesn't like me.'

‘Come on, Jim. You're all stressed out, that's all.'

But Jim shook his head. ‘This has to end, Susan. I can't allow any more people to die … not for me, anyhow. I'm going after Jane and that's the proposition I'm going to put to her.'

‘In that case, I'm coming with you.'

‘Why? You don't owe me anything.'

‘I can help, that's why. I'm a sensitive. I know what I'm doing when it comes to spirits.'

Michael came out of the door too. ‘If Susan's going then I'm going.'

Jim took a deep breath. ‘All right. But if we're all going, we'd better go now.'

A
t first he thought he'd lost her, but as they crossed Rialto Avenue, looking right and left, Jim saw the faintest distortion in a drugstore window only fifty yards away, and then a rippling effect along the shiny side of a highly polished black Lincoln.

‘She's there,' he told Susan. ‘She's headed toward Riviera.'

‘Do you think she knows that we're following her?'

‘I haven't a clue. Who knows what spirits think about?'

Whether Jane was aware that they were following her or not, they kept their distance, as far as they could. Sometimes, when she was walking along a darker section of the street, Jim could see her quite distinctly – her wet hair shining in the streetlights. At other times, when she was passing a brightly lit store, he could barely make her out at all.

They turned down Windward Avenue toward the oceanfront. Although it was a warm summer night, there was a thin, edgy breeze blowing from the sea. Jim couldn't help shivering, and Susan reached out and took hold of his hand.

‘You don't have to do this, you know. There must be other ways to get rid of the Swimmer.'

‘Like what? It's a myth, it's an urban legend, hardly anybody has ever encountered a Swimmer, or knows what to do about it when they do.'

‘You could try to talk to some more spiritualists.'

‘Are you kidding me? The last spiritualist I talked to wound up drowned. I shouldn't even be talking to you … I'm exposing you to just as much danger as me or any of my students.'

‘That's down to me, Jim. I know how dangerous this is. Don't you understand? When you can feel things, like I can – when you can
see
things, like you can – you don't have any choice. You have a gift and you have to use it, whether you want to or not.'

‘Listen,' said Jim, keeping his eye on Jane's flickering image as she crossed Speedway toward Ocean Front Walk. ‘I never wanted any gift. I never wanted anything except to be normal, like other kids. I didn't want to be a teacher, I wanted to be a pilot. But I saw demons; and I saw people's dead relatives; and what kind of a pilot do you think you can be when you walk into an Air Force recruitment center and you can see the sergeant's grandmother standing behind him, smiling at you like a goddamn Cheshire Cat?'

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. They had walked more than seven blocks now, and he was beginning to sweat. ‘Besides, I had an astigmatism in my left eye. No Tomcats for me.'

‘Do you know what amazes me about you?' said Susan. ‘You can help all those kids to deal with the world. You can teach them how to think for themselves, how to communicate. And yet you can't do the same for Jim Rook.'