Cocooned in Darkness Page 2

go there again, but it had blasted back any way, even more vivid than two hours before.

  Soon his mind was overwhelmed with crackling noises and black smoke. The dancing revelations were back too, along with their exotic friends. He heard the roar of their flaming lips in his ears, as they licked the woodbeams.

  Fortunately, the house behind his belonged to snowbirds, and from their formidable barrier of bougainvilleas, he watched power lines burning and flames shooting from his den. Three paramedics clustered near a ground ladder, whose tip was raised just below the bedroom sill. One rescue worker heeled the ladder. The other two lowered Nina’s lover, feet first from the building and then her limp form followed. Uh huh, that man wasn’t staying another night with her. Her eyelids were closed, so Claude knew she couldn’t see him. Still, he receded deeper into the shadows and frantically concentrated on his breathing before he threaded his way back to his car, parked one street over.

  Even with her eyes shut, he had felt Nina’s presence.

  Fierce. Powerful.

  Seductively evil.

  He had to get away. Claude stood behind the controls in his sailboat and gripped the wheel tighter. Sea breezes rimmed his nostrils. His eyes followed waves with white surf breaking over the tips. He was sailing. Not because he wanted to, but because leaving Florida was the only thing he could do. A glimpse of his navigation charts, told him he was on course for the Bahamas.

  The Bermuda Triangle seeped into his thoughts. In this maritime trifecta spanning Miami, Bermuda and San Juan Puerto Rico, many different aircraft and boats had mysteriously disappeared, leading him to believe the Triangle had something unusual about it that swallowed up people, planes, and boats. By one o’clock, night stained the cloud-shrouded bay a deep indigo. Dumping the killer’s body overboard relieved any remaining guilt. Claude drew a quick, thin breath then pushed himself to take one last look at Downtown Miami before its shimmering skyline faded in his wake.

  When he turned back to the choppy Atlantic waters ahead, the moon’s fade away had casted an eerie reflection on his sloop and the sea. He focused on his bad luck to travel on the very night of a lunar eclipse, and for the next one hundred minutes, cocooned in darkness, his visibility nothing more than a limited circle, the small hairs on the back of his neck stirred. But it wasn’t the vastness beyond the city lights that transformed him into a vigilant sailor; it was the blackness with its clammy touch, sweeping his shoulders with damp kisses, its voice sandpaper in his ear. Yes, it warned, beware of what floats beyond your sight.

  Was that floating jetsam? His relic of a boat had no radar. “I’ll beat you,” he shouted. “You won’t get me like the rest of those ships and planes.” Claude told himself everything would be fine, but fearing a collision on the high seas, his eyes darted in all directions as he searched for other boats, especially freighters. They were out there ready to smash him into smithereens. My God, what was he thinking? Anything that massive, of course, he’d see them.

  A sudden stab of anxiety made him glance up. The earth’s shadow had already passed in front of the moon and blocked all direct light. The instant he thought the crescent might vanish altogether, a fiery glow appeared. The infiltration widened, becoming as distinct and ominous as toxic red tide. The infestation soon left him staring at a blood-red full moon. His lean frame shuddered, as he bent down and threw a parka on over his sweatshirt.

  He’d heard lunar eclipses triggered weather anomalies, tsunami and tidal surges. Again, he pondered the Triangle. Ships have disappeared as early as 1843, and even on land in 1969 two people at the Bimini Lighthouse inexplicably disappeared, never to be seen again, as if vaporized by a meteorite and reduced to less than a burnt smear. No remains or wreckage or oil slicks were ever found for most of the Triangle “accidents,” and in one instance, an entire squadron of bombers, including five planes, vanished without a trace. A reconnaissance plane on a search for them, supposedly exploded over the sea, but no hint of it was found either. Many explanations flew into Claude’s head. None answered his questions, at least to his satisfaction.

  The air felt cooler over the next two hours, and he noticed the barometer falling. As if he didn’t have enough complications in his life already, now a squall was coming. One droplet then a drizzle melted down his face, and before long a cloudburst swirled around him like a swarm of diamonds, glittered from an onyx sky. His eyes scanned mounting seas as he juggled foul weather gear, gloves and a hat. And even after he scrambled into the life jacket, there was something disturbing about clipping it to a safety harness so he could maneuver in the cockpit and still lower the sails. After Nina, he hated being tied to anything.

  The winds came in lashing gusts. But, he’d checked the five-day weather forecast. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Amid a clash of rain, waves and howling wind, he mumbled about entering white water. “Goddamit, I can't make out anything. Hell, what a mess.” More than lumbering around, feeling downright anxious, Claude felt the same desperation he had when he tried to hold his marriage together.

  He’d been dealt a squall and had to deal with it fast too. Serendipity, his thirty-five-foot Irwin, pitched up and down as it bucked the Gulf Stream’s powerful, thermal currents. Here, only a month earlier, a crew had to jump for their lives when the sea erupted in a sudden storm and sank their yacht. He banished that thought to cope with the upsurges swamping the cockpit.

  Every motion, as the white-capped waves battered the boat, reminded Claude how slippery the pitching deck could get sometimes. Then he sighted gloom. Too near. Just as he twisted his head for a better view, his legs began to inch out from under his knees like twin seesaws, angling for a new location.

  He steadied himself long enough to catch the shape, as the mountainous sea rose before him. The aberration, darker than the eye of a hurricane and rumbling louder, advanced on where he crouched. He saw the magnitude of the wave glaring down on him and lunged for something to grab on to. Anything.

  His knees jerked forward, as he folded into the floor with his torso sloshing the deck. His arms scraped about in a panic until his fingers finally clamped around a line. Claude held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Nothing, just the darkness in his head speculating why things disappeared.

  For a split second, through a narrow breach between his lids, Claude saw what he didn’t want to see. The wall of ocean rose higher. The deluge torpedoed down warm and white all over him like curdled milk. Pressure pushed his body across the fiberglass. As he skidded, the rope burned into his palms. By the time his hand caught on the toe-rail, another blast rammed him with a force so great, his lungs mashed within his chest. The boat heeled. He flipped over. And, the flux swept him overboard.

  His eyes opened.

  Hanging by the harness, he swallowed a mouthful of water, sinking deeper into an airless trough. The brine in his throat burnt like acid, eating away at his insides like his betraying wife’s heart. Swamped. Amid raging spume, he clung to the side and sucked in fear. He struggled to accept Nina had lived and he might not.

  More torrents careened into him, as saturated foul weather gear, the jeans under them and his canvas boat shoes dragged him down. “Goddamn waves, you’re killing me.” Between the roar of the sea that deafened his ears and his own hollering, he tried not to be scared about being lost. But, it was getting harder for him to clear his mind and stay afloat. If only he could hold out long enough for the boat’s leeward drift to work in his favor.

  He felt terror welling up in his belly. Afraid the lifeline might break, Claude kept pulling on it. Nonstop waves bashed into his face so fast he couldn’t catch his breath. His eyes stung. Nose clogged. Mouth overwhelmed. About to sink, he was losing his grip. Suffocating. The more he hungered for air, the greater his sense of doom and panic. He knew with absolute certainty he was a dead man.

  His past didn’t flashover. Rather, the waves snuffed out the fire in his belly. It cleansed the anger he’d been feeling for an eternity. Just as he felt a strange calm sw
eep over him, the vessel dipped to the waterline. His hands and feet worked with grim focus until he finally scaled the hull and tumbled back into the boat.

  Wet, tired and sore—he clutched lines and battled windblasts—too many hours spent through cresting seas trying to control Serendipity. Every ten seconds massive waves slammed the hull, and his sloop fishtailed wildly.

  Water flowed from the corner of his mouth. So far to go. No way to get there faster.

  An endless string of miserable hours came and went. “Goddamnit, help me,” he yelled in

  frustration. The wind increased and shrieked around him. Knuckles bleeding, muscles straining in his back, the sea tossed his boat like a feather in a typhoon. Claude fought back, even though he wanted to give up.

  He should jump back in and let the ocean devour him, the remnants of his life lost forever. That’d teach Nina a lesson. Or maybe, a drink at sunset would be therapeutic. A second one might be even better… something to look forward to. His choice bolstered him as the voyage continued. Another thought occurred to him. Perhaps his immersion was a baptism to absolve his sins, bury his old life and resurrect a new one.

  The next morning near Bimini on the Stream’s eastern edge, the