Heat

Chapter 9: Night Swim

Chapter 9: Night Swim

Hurricane Bay Beach

Bungalow 16

11:47 P.M.

Back at the bungalow, I stripped down to my birthday suit and headed into the Gulf. Saltwater licked my skin. I glided into the Gulf with ease, felt seaweed brush against my ankles, legs, and swinging balls. A horrible fear of getting tangled up in the slimy s**t surfaced in my mind, which caused me to wade closer to beach. Not once did I put my head under the water. I wasn’t really in the mood to portray a playful porpoise by enjoying water games, a scene that Casey usually enjoyed watching. Instead, I slowly waved my arms to and fro through the water, relished the strong current, and watched the night’s thick clouds block out the moon’s light. I relaxed in the feisty water, enjoying my time alone.

Company arrived. Casey soon joined me. He appeared out of nowhere on the beach, a shadow in the moon’s silver-blue beams of soothing light. He looked like a ghost positioned in the sand. Thick darkness made it too difficult to see what he wore (nothing, I had hoped), the expression on his face, or other details. He stood motionless and quiet.

“Casey, I thought you were sleeping!” I called out to him, smiling because he had made his way out for maybe a night’s swim with me.

He didn’t answer me, which I thought peculiar, since the guy could talk a hearing-challenged person into boredom. Rather, he stood still on the beach, a mere shadow of gray and black in the distance, with his arms and hands at his sides.

“Casey, are you coming in? I know the undertow is dangerous, but it’s never stopped you before. You like to swim at night, calling it sexy.”

How many nights had he seduced me in the Gulf, worshiping my nakedness in the saltwater, calling himself Captain Blue Torteese, being bad with his fingers, mouth, and his erection? He admitted first that s*x in the Gulf was one of his favorite pastimes, particularly with me.

Nothing happened, though. My boyfriend stood immobile and silent on the sand, some twenty feet away from me. He looked featureless there, a blur of sorts in the darkness. Half of me believed he was sleepwalking, but he wasn’t. Casey didn’t have a history of walking around while he dreamed.

“Casey, what’s wrong?”

I was just about to wade through the Gulf’s wicked current and walk up and over the sandy beach to meet him when a yellow-gold light appeared in the distance, behind the figure on the beach, inside our bedroom. Then Casey’s thin silhouette moved from one side of our bedroom window to the other side, obviously up from his sleep.

Every muscle in my body froze, and my heart stopped beating almost immediately. Fear ebbed into my nervous system and through my entire frame. The person on the beach wasn’t Casey.

My attention quickly concentrated on the stranger positioned on the beach between me and the bungalow. Nervous trembles rocked my stomach, and goose pimples bloomed on my arms and legs. My head felt as if it were going to explode because of the drumming sound between both ears. I feared for my life, having no clue who the interloper on the beach could be.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Nothing. Silence.

“Who the f**k are you?” I called out to the man, terror in my voice as it wavered. “What are you doing here?”

The trespasser moved then, turning around. He sprinted over the sand, leaving the beach.

It gave me enough time to call out, “Casey! Help me! Casey, someone’s on the beach!”

When the interloper reached the corner of Bungalow Sixteen, opposite the bedroom, a burst of red-orange fire came to life in one of his hands, which then fell to the sand. Then the trespasser bolted away and vanished around the front of the bungalow, lost in the night, perhaps running toward downtown Hurricane Bay or elsewhere.