November 2008

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DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us

In the Moonlight
by Daniel Slaten

Eric rolled over and looked into Lisa's eyes and knew she was dying. He didn't know how many times the car had flipped over, but it was enough times to break every important bone in both their bodies. He couldn't even reach over to comfort his dying wife in the last few moments of her life. Her face was covered in blood, but her eyes were still clear and blue and beautiful. She looked his way and in that moment of near silence they shared one final intimate glance. No words were spoken, but everything they wanted to say was said with their eyes. Eric had never felt so deeply in love before, and then her eyes closed and her last breath slipped through her swollen lips and it was all over.

Till death do us part. Eric wanted to scream, but he couldn't. He couldn't even whimper. So he closed his eyes and drifted away as the sound of sirens grew louder in his ears and then . . . nothingness.

Nine months passed before Eric could even walk again. He'd been told countless times during his rehabilitation how lucky he was to be alive, but he didn't exactly see it that way. How lucky was he to lose his wife on their wedding night? If she had to die why couldn't he have gone too? No, there was nothing lucky about him surviving that crash. His bones and lungs had healed, and his face looked almost as good as new, but there was something missing inside him that could never be replaced. In a lot of ways, this was worse than death. But how could anyone else understand that?

Nobody said anything when Eric drove himself out to the sight of the accident. Everyone had different ways of dealing with these things, and they figured this was just something Eric had to do to help the healing process along. He didn't know if that was it or not. He didn't know if maybe he was just going back there so he could finish what the accident had started and finally die, or if he was going there to grieve the loss of Lisa. He just knew it was something he had to do. There was no conscious choice being made, just like there was no conscious choice being made every time he took a breath. Some things just happened and you had no control over them.

Like the night of the accident, the moon was full when Eric went out to Goodson's Bend. He drove slowly, especially around the curves, and pulled over onto the shoulder of the road when he reached the spot where he thought they first got hit. He got out of the car and walked around to the side and stood there for a moment, looking between the full moon overhead and the lake below. They were lucky they hadn't rolled over into the lake. Or maybe they weren't lucky. No one could have rescued him from the lake and he would have died with Lisa.

But it hadn't happened that way and he was still alive and she wasn't and nothing short of suicide could change that.

Eric looked around and suddenly didn't know why he was here. What was he expecting to find? There was nothing remarkable about this particular spot at all. There wasn't even anything that would indicate a fatal accident had ever occurred here. Just an asphalt road, a bunch of trees, and a quiet lake. It could have been anywhere. There should have been a sign or a marker or something. The road should have been closed forever, the grass burned, the trees cut down, and the lake drained of all its water.

A single tear containing everything bottled up inside Eric slowly slid down his cheek, and that was it. Nothing in life was ever as dramatic as it should be. Not like the movies. There was no tear-jerking music playing in the background or gut-wrenching screams that brought an agonized man to his knees. There was just moonlight and quiet and a confused man standing on the side of an empty road and shedding a single tear.

Moonlight. Something about the way it reflected off the calm water of the lake caught Eric's eyes, so he shifted his focus there. The light shimmered, like something out of a lucid dream, and the edges of the reflection blurred, swaying back and forth, probably because of a light breeze skimming over the surface of the lake. Eric lost himself in the spaces where the dark water drifted in and out of the white light, like two objects that no longer knew where they ended and where their counterpart began, and it made Eric think of him and Lisa. They had been like that. Slowly, the lines between them blurred and by the time they'd married he had no idea where he ended and she began because the difference was meaningless. He began where she began, and he ended where she ended. It was that simple. That was why he was here now.

And then he saw her, hovering there in the light, more beautiful than she'd ever looked before, her skin glowing with the light of the moon and her eyes twinkling with the light of the two brightest stars in the sky.

"Lisa?"

Eric moved towards the lake and every step he took made her more real. At the same time, she was very much not real, if that made any sense. If the breeze picked up enough she would probably disappear forever.

"Eric . . ." Her voice was soft and ethereal. It sounded like it was coming from a million miles away, but really it was only coming from the middle of the lake, which couldn't be more than twenty yards away.

The lake. Eric stopped when he reached the water. What now? Was he supposed to swim out to her, or could she come to him?

"Lisa! Can you come here?"

"I don't think so."

Without stopping to assess the situation, Eric dove into the lake and swam towards the center. Not even the deceptively cold water could stop him from being reunited with his one true love. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he swam, shielding his skin from the cold water and his arms from fatigue. When he reached the center of the lake he stopped, but she wasn't there.

"Lisa!"

Eric looked up and saw the moon eclipsed by a cloud. Its reflection was gone from the lake and so was Lisa. He waited patiently, treading water and wondering if he'd lost his mind. Then, slowly, as the cloud moved on, the light returned, engulfing him in its bright embrace.

"Eric."

Lisa's face hovered inches from Eric's own, her body either submerged under the water or nonexistent.

"I've missed you so much," said Eric, his voice cracking.

"I don't understand what's happening, Eric."

"I don't either, love, but I know I still love you. Death can't stop that. Right now you're the most beautiful woman in the whole world."

"Kiss me," Lisa pleaded, her words sounding desperate and far away.

Eric moved in for a kiss and felt something when his lips touched hers, but it wasn't anything like he expected it to be. It was like tasting silk, or something slightly less tangible. Like touching Love itself, something real and not real, a kind of energy more than anything else.

He wanted more, though. He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be alright. He wanted to do everything he hadn't been able to do the night of the accident. This -- whatever it was -- was better than nothing, but it wasn't everything.

"I can't feel you, Eric. What's happening?"

"I don't know," Eric said, finally feeling an ache in his arms and legs as he struggled to keep his head above water. "I've got to go back to the shore. Can you follow me?"

"I don't think so . . ."

"Try," Eric said as he began a frantic dash back towards the shore. His head fell under the lake's surface and water rushed into his lungs, but he fought against fatigue and gasped for air every time he came up. By the time he reached the shore, he collapsed, unable to even stand. He rolled over on his back, his chest heaving with each labored breath, and he opened his eyes to stare up at the moon. As consciousness faded away he thought he could see Lisa's face reflected there, like an angel watching over him. This was the last thought he had before drifting off into a deep and lengthy sleep.

Eric opened his eyes and closed them just as quickly. It took him a moment to adjust to the brightness of the sun. When he finally opened his eyes again he realized he was lying on the shore of the lake. He thought back to the night before and remembered the moonlight and Lisa and swimming back here before collapsing and decided he must be crazy. That was the only way to explain any of this. None of that could have been real, could it? It was just a dream. He'd probably hit his head on something. Maybe he'd tried to drown himself and the lake had spit him out. Whatever the case, he needed to get up and go home.

The next night Eric returned to the lake. There was nothing to see, though. No moon, thanks to heavy clouds, and no ghosts either. He was disappointed and relieved. Disappointed that Lisa wasn't here, but relieved that she wasn't here because that meant he wasn't crazy. There's no such thing as ghosts, he told himself. Not in any real, tangible sense. Ghosts were just things we carried around inside us; things we weren't ready to let go of. If he'd seen anything the night before, that's all it was. Something he wasn't ready to let go of. In his mind, Lisa was still the most beautiful woman in the world, and for whatever reason, she'd decided to spend the rest of her much too short life with him, and he wasn't ready to let go of her yet.

"Eric. . ."

Lisa's sweet, soft voice fluttered on the wind, causing Eric to look back at the lake. The clouds had finally parted, and there dancing in a crescent of moonlight was the woman he loved. Was she real or was she simply a conjuration of his mind's eye? Did it even matter?

Eric dove into the lake, ignoring how cold the water felt against his skin, and he swam out to her. When he reached her he grabbed her, what little bit he could feel, and he kissed her like he had never kissed her before, and when he finally felt the last bit of air leaving his lungs the moonlight disappeared and she slipped out of his grasp.

Everything went black then, but Eric smiled as he slowly sank to the bottom of the lake. He had loved with all his heart and he would love again the next time the moon came out to play.