Watery Lover

The seas hissed slightly. Her balcony door was open, and Andrea Le Call was staring out into the sunset. She’d arrived early to this pristine location for a business conference that would take place two days later.

Her feet were killing her and she sat down on the edge of the bed to kick off her high heels. “Goddamn the bastard that invented these things, let alone made them mandatory to wear during business meetings.” She sipped wine and chuckled as she re-played the days events. There were so many stuffed shirts in the area, she wasn’t sure if she was at a business meeting or at a Woolworth’s department store window. “How many assholes can be crowded into one little room?” She shook her head.

“Help Me…”

The words were ethereal, breathless almost; Andrea’s eyes swept the room, frantically darting left and right trying to locate the source. “Look.” She finally murmured out, exasperated. “If this is some sort of joke then I am not amused!”

She waited in silence a few moments more, the look on her face daring the phantom voice to try and break through again.

“Help me, please. Help me!” The voice came again louder, more panicked and this time Andrea swiftly set her drink down upon the table. She pushed back her seat and trotted walked out to the balcony.

She cast her eyes out to the sea, scanning the waters inch by inch, ravenously trying to locate someone, anyone. Her mind raced; perhaps there was a swimmer that had been stung by a jellyfish, or gotten the cramps. Andrea placed her hands to her lips. “Hello, is there any one out there? Hellooo?” Her voice rang out, but in moments was obscured by the hiss of the waves. She tried one last time, the terror that someone might be loosing his or her life abating slowly. Soon, she was almost ready to give up and go back in when she heard a responding voice.

“Yes! I’m over by the shore, near an outcropping of rock. I seem to have gotten a little tired on my way in.”

Andrea scanned the area again, her hands settling to her sides as she looked.

Far in the distance, there appeared to be something floating on the surf.

Fearful for the stranger’s safety, Andrea quickly ran back to her phone and dialed the front desk. Her fingers drummed on the table as she waited impatiently for them to pick up. “What in the hell is taking them so long to pick up?” She watched as the seconds on the clock/microwave morphed by, until at last –

“This is the Front Desk, Donnie Dubois, Concierge, speaking. How may I be of service?”

“Yes, this is Andrea Le Call in room 1512. I believe that someone has gotten caught in the sea!” She heard as Donnie took a quick breath. “What is taking him so long?” She was desperate! Someone was out there, drowning in this water, and she was busy playing games with this pompous asshole, concierge? Finally she could take no more. “Listen, Donnie, right?”

“Yes.”

“I swear to you that I’m telling the truth. If you don’t believe me, then fine, but please, have someone check it out!”

There was a pause on the line. ‘Great’ thought Andrea, ‘The jackass dropped me. “Hello?” She tried out.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m still here. I was just on the other line with the EMT’s trying to get them to check into your story. But the beach lifeguard is also here and he is quite positive that no one has been out swimming or out on a boat in quite sometime.” He continued on. “What makes you think that you can fool us into running around trying to looking for a scarf, or something just so you college kids can get a few laughs? So good day.”

Andrea was seething. “You believe that I’m making the whole thing up, is that it?”

“Ma…”

She cut him off. “Well, thank you so very much!” The phone dinged as she threw it back onto its cradle. Angrily, she started to pace. “They think that I’m nuts, a crackpot.”

“Help me, please…” The ghostly voice came once again.

This time Andrea shouted back. “Who are you? Where are you? What is it that you want from me?”

“I’m lost.”

“LOST? Aren’t you trying to get to shore?”

“I miss my husband.”

MISS YOUR HUSBAND? WHERE ARE YOU? DO YOU NEED HELP OR NOT?”

“I miss my husband.” The voice whispered again

“Well I have never married.” Andrea admitted with some pride.

“Pity for you.”

Andrea tried to ignore the ghosts mocking attitude, and decided to try another tactic. “Why do you miss your husband, did he leave you.”

“Yes.” The voice whispered, sounding like a summer breeze.

“Did he cheat on you?”

“No…” The voice stopped for a moment. The waves lashed against the sand, the hiss of the water, coming out as a slow moan “disappeared.”

“So what was it that your husband did?”

“He was a sailor.”

“A sailor?” Andrea thought that it was the craziest thing that she’d ever heard in her life. She didn’t even think that the profession existed in this day and age. “You said ‘was’ - what happened to him?” ‘I should have brought a tape recorder out here to catch this whole thing – then I could have given it out during Halloween.”

“I don’t know. The only thing that I do know was that his ship went down at sea. He was picked up by another boat, I heard all of this through the newspaper, see. They were all right, delayed a few weeks, but nonetheless all right. When I heard that they were coming back, I was overjoyed, and I went out to the widows walk to welcome them back home.” There was an unearthly titter of laughter. “Widows walk, how ironic.”

“Yeah. Then what happened?” Andrea was so curious now that she was unable to contain her excitement.

“Well, just as I found out that they were about to cast anchor and dock, the boat suddenly hit a great gust of wind and listed to the left quite a lot. So much so, that the boat was forced into a large outcropping of rock!”

“What about your husband?”

“Well, the boat was taking on water, and we watched as my husband jumped overboard to try and swim to shore. He was believed drowned, but no one really knew – he just vanished. Officially, I was declared a widow.”

“Oh my goodness, what on earth did you do?”

“Well at first, I tried to continue the roll of a proper widow. Wear black, stay at home, and mourn. But you must know that I was lonely. I wanted some sort of companionship.”

“That’s not too hard to understand.” Andrea consoled the apparition. She too, had longings to be with someone.

“Yet, none of the men that I’d sought for…” The ghost paused, searching for just the right words “…companionship, ever pleased me. Even though my husband had left, I still felt as though I was cheating on him. I didn’t feel that it would be right for me to bed another man. Yet, I still had those lustful, yearning, evil feelings inside of me that demanded that they be released. It got to the point that they consumed my body and I was unable to think of anything else. It was beginning to take over my life and I felt miserable.”

Andrea nodded her head.

“I tried to go to our local pastor for some advice, but he was of no help, and I sunk deeper and deeper into the abyss. The only thing that I had was a sense of loss and longing. I missed my Edwin horribly.”

“How long were you and Edwin married?” Andrea asked.

“Edwin and I were married for a total of two months before he was called back onto his ship.”

“Two months? And you knew that he was going to have to leave?”

“Yes. We’d discussed that, and I understood that he had to go – to help earn the money that we’d need – I was perfectly fine with it. Yet, when I watched him drowning right before my eyes…”

“It was too much.” Andrea finished. She futilely reached out an arm to try and touch the ghost, even though she had no idea where the apparition was, she felt an innate need to try and comfort the ghost.

“In a mass of desperation, I came to a decision and finally found a way in which we could both be together. The idea came to me in a flash and in that moment, I had never felt more vibrant – more alive.”

“What brought on the change?”

“I knew exactly what it was that I needed to do so that Edwin and I could once again be together. It was all so simple. I figured that since my husband had died, than the best thing for me was to go and join him.”

“So what happened?”

“It was a bit cool on the night that I decided to go ahead and take my life. I’d picked out my wedding dress, figuring that then I would look as beautiful to him, as when we were married. He’d loved me in that, so what better way to greet him once again?”

“It is rather romantic.” Andrea smiled, looking out into the room, and still seeing no one. It was also downright creepy, romantic and a little disturbed.

“It was blustery when I started on my walk to the cliffs edge, and I found it odd that the closer that I got to the edge of the cliff, the more the wind blew in the opposite direction, against me.”

“Do you think that it was Edwin, trying to stop you from committing suicide?”

“Well, if it was.” She stated, suddenly angered, “he didn’t do a good enough job!” She continued on with her tale. “The dress billowed around me as I calmly walked to the edge. I peered over, and watched as the waves broke on the rocks. I put one foot out, and then the other. Wrapping my arms around myself as I plummeted into the frigid water.”

“So that’s how it finally happened, huh?”

“Yes. I panicked as I landed and inhaled some water. Yet this was what I had wanted, and I let my life slip slowly away. I thought that this would be the perfect way that I would be able to see Edwin again, I thought that there would be a light…”

“What happened next? Did you see Edwin, were the two of you reunited?”

“What do you think, huh? Do you see Edwin sitting here beside me, talking to you as well as myself?”

“Well…no.” Andrea patted her arms around herself, and she started to pace back and forth. Suddenly it was very, very cold.

“Just for your information Missy, I’ve been waiting for Edwin for a good hundred and fifty years!”

“What have you thought about doing about your predicament?”

There was a loud bang as a mirror suddenly fell from its moorings, and crashed onto the floor. “THERE IS NOTHING THAT I CAN DO ABOUT IT!”

“Have you ever though about accepting what happened to the two of you, perhaps ask God for forgiveness? Maybe, just maybe, He’ll grant you the ability to see Edwin just one more time!”

“What are you joshing me? Suicide is seen as a sin, and there’s no way that I’ll be able to get into heaven now.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Call out to your husband and see what happens!”

“EDWIN!” The words seemed to echo throughout the whole hotel, and the room itself seemed to quiver. “EDDDDDWINNNNNNN!”

Andrea ran over to the middle of the room, for she’d been in plenty of hurricanes and tornadoes to figure out basically what was happening. “If this whole structure is going to topple down upon my head, then I don’t want to be stuck directly in the middle of it.” Andrea ducked underneath one of the beds as the ceiling of her room and the others above that were ripped from their moorings and tossed into a black, swirling abyss.

There was a gigantic, mass of swirling black energy. If this was Edwin, she couldn’t tell, but she didn’t want to be the one that was ultimately held responsible for destroying the entire hotel. There was a ghastly moan as some of the chairs started to be magically picked up and hurtled across the room shattering into many pieces.

“Edwin, is that you? Is that really you?”

Andrea sincerely doubted that the Edwin that her phantasmagoric friend had alluded to was this bestial monstrosity, but she didn’t want to invoke the spirits wrath if in fact it was Edwin.

In response to her question, the vortex of black dissipated.

“Hello.” There was silence in the room. If the ghost had actually found her true love, Andrea was unable to say.

She looked upwards to the large “skylight” that the Demon had created when it had arrived.

“Oh great.” Groaned Andrea, “now how in the world am I going to be able to explain something like this?” Surprisingly, the sun started to show through the hole, and a white mist started to envelop where the hole was. As Andrea watched, the mist seemed to be making repairs on the ceilings and the roof.

Moments, later everything was just as it had been when Andrea had come in the first night. She shakily walked over to the bed. Her body was in shock, she didn’t want to go to sleep, after what she’d just witnessed, but her mind demanded it.

She fell into a deep sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

The wind blew through an open window, and Andrea swore that she heard a whisper of “Thank-you and Goodnight Andrea” throughout the hotel.

Andrea packed her bags ready and refreshed for the next meeting. She wondered if the whole experience had just been one big dream.

As she drove out of the cul-de-sac, she overheard several guests wonder what exactly had gone on during the night. She could see in her rearview mirror as several of them walked out around the hotels beautiful watery scenery.

“Gee,” someone remarked. “Those cliffs do look lovely. I wonder if they have ever had ships come through here.”

“Yeah.” Replied another, “I heard at one point in time it used to be the widows walk, and that there was a ship that capsized right in front of this newlywed with her husband on board. She was so traumatized by it, she took her own life.”

“Anyone know what happened to her?”

“Nope?”

“Do you think that she could still be around here?”

“That’s preposterous!” Exclaimed the first man.

Andrea just laughed as she sped out of the hotel. She had work to do.