Posted by Thanatos on March 05, 2000 at 16:12:33:
A short story about drowning, with a difference.
regards
Th.
Drowning in Air (c) Thanatos Reborn 2000
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She knew she had been betrayed the moment she surfaced from the dive.
Pieter's three crewmen were there, and they hauled her up from the diving pool. They went for her dive knife first, quickly throwing it back into the water, then roughly stripped her of her jacket, tank and mask, dropping the tank and its equipment onto the metal decking with a heavy crash.
'Hey!' she shouted, but they grabbed her by the arms and frogmarched her to the private elevator that led to Guenter's boardroom, ignoring her protests.
'Guenter's going to hear about this,' she managed to blurt out, in an attempt to scare them. They said nothing, and that more than anything else made her realize that her fate was sealed.
The elevator slowed to a stop, and she was pushed out roughly onto the expensive deep pile carpet of Guenter's innermost room, from where he controlled his family's affairs.
She stood, still dripping water from her wetsuit into the deep pile carpet. It was soft and luxurious through the thick neoprene of her diveboots.
'Ahh, Kate,' Guenter strode forward from a massive observation window which overlooked the rest of the island. His English was accented, but excellent, and his charming manner belied his ruthless efficiency in dealing with people who betrayed him.
'I think you have been lying to me, Doctor Marsh,' he said, wagging a finger and smiling, like a friendly schoolteacher. He nodded to the crewmen, who forced her down into one of the chairs and held her there.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' she said, shaking her head and smiling back, 'What’s going on here? I've done nothing wrong!’
'Oh but you have, Doctor Marsh!' Guenter tilted his head back and laughed, a strange, high-pitched sound like a child.
'Believe me, you have,' he said, his voice lowering to a more menacing tone, and he lifted his hand and pointed a remote control at a video screen, which pulsed into life.
It was a security video, and on it, an image of a wetsuited Kate Marsh crept into the very office that they were in now, and went over to the wall safe.
'I think we'll fast forward past the bit where you found the combination,' said Guenter, 'that takes some time. Oh, here we are,' and he started the tape again. Now the figure looked up, and it was clearly her face, and she was spreading documents out along the desk.
In the film, she proceeded to photograph them.
Kate swallowed, watching her death sentence unreel in front of her, her throat suddenly dry. This was it.
'I don't think we'll listen to what Miss Marsh has to say,' said Guenter, dropping the remote on the floor, 'let's get on with this.'
He motioned to his men, and two of them held her down in the chair while a third came up behind and placed a steel full-face diving helmet over her head and secured it.
'You know what made me think of this?' said Guenter, crouching down in front of her, so that her terrified eyes could see him, 'I always wondered what it would be like to see someone drowning at close quarters. I've drowned several people who have... disappointed me over the years, but I've never really experienced it really close before. So I asked my men to fix this up. It's ingenious, don't you think?'
Kate struggled against her captors as they attached a long flexible hose to one of the air inlets of the modified helmet, and she felt a hissing of air.
But it was different somehow. It rose quickly in pitch. Then she gave a howl of terror as she realized some liquid was forcing it in, and the puff of air vanished to be replaced by the rushing sound of water, spraying into her helmet, filling it up from the neck upwards.
'It's ironic, isn't it, Doctor Marsh,' said Guenter, 'Hold her steady please, I want to see her face... that's it. Doctor Marsh, isn’t it ironic that a piece of equipment like this, that normally holds a life-giving medium, could be turned into this, which deals a slow, suffocating death.' He watched, his pupils dilating, as her muffled shouts could be heard from inside the steel helmet.
The water sloshed around her neck. It was being pumped in painfully slowly, heightening her terror. She screamed to be let out, to be spared, anything to stop the water from coming in. She twisted back and forth, trying to escape, but they held her down hard in the seat.
‘Some interesting technical details, Miss March,’ he shouted out. ‘We’re not using plain water, but a fluid with a refractive index to correct the blurring you’d normally get with your vision. We want you to see everything. Oh, and the helmet is locked shut, so don’t bother to try to unfasten it.’
The water was past her mouth now, and she held her breath as it went past her nose, her eyes, her ears, and now splashed coldly about her hair. Then everything went quiet and muffled, but she could still hear as they disconnected her hose and left the room.
She was alone in the room with Guenter.
'Two minutes, Miss Marsh,' he said loudly, next to the helmet so that the sound would carry. 'Two minutes at most, before your will expires, and you have to take a breath. Take a walk if you wish, it might ease the pain in your lungs.'
Kate's body writhed as she fought not to breathe. She hadn't been able to take a deep breath before the water had closed over her face, and now her lungs were on fire. She stood up and stumbled about the room, knocking over furniture, banging into things, but still the dreadful helmet held her in its grasp.
Guenter followed her, his face a study in rapt fascination. He took in every detail of her struggling to contain her air, the frantic scrabbling of her fingers to try to unlock the helmet, the involuntary heaving of her chest as her lungs desperately tried to get air, the quivering muscles under the tight black suit.
Finally, she made it to the huge plate glass window. Outside, it was morning, and seagulls were wheeling outside, in the depths of air over the cliffs. She placed her fingers on the glass, and pressed her flooded helmet to it, and gazed out at the air that blew, cold and free, before her face, while she drowned by degrees. The thought made her want to weep with despair, and oxygen starvation was starting to overcome her. She had to breathe; she had to take a breath. Just one last breath of life before the cold water took her life; that was all she asked.
She slowly sank down at the window, her splayed hands sliding down the glass.
She collapsed at the knees and slumped down, rolling over so that she was staring up at Guenter’s face. He moved to stand astride her, and although her vision had contracted to a narrow tunnel that only took in his face, she knew he was masturbating over her death; she must have been an irresistible sight, clad in tight black rubber, drowning slowly in front of him.
As if in answer, she felt a hand fumbling at her neck, then her suit zip was slowly pulled down, unzipping her from neck to navel, and then two hands pulled the rubbery neoprene apart, exposing her breasts and flat stomach to his gaze.
The touch of his hands on her skin was too much, and she involuntarily opened her mouth and breathed in.
At once, a rod of water leaped down her larynx. It felt cold, and heavy, as if someone had pushed a heavy weight into her. Her glottis snapped shut in the reflex action that would ensure she suffocated long before her lungs filled with water, and her body convulsed. It felt as if her soul was being ripped from her body, inch by inch, and she tried to cry out, to scream, but she couldn’t, and her brain screamed in a silent torment as her fingernails went blue; she could see them through the helmet as she scrabbled at the faceplate with her hands.
She writhed in agony on the carpet, trying to get up and not making it, failing, falling onto her back again between his legs. It was far, far worse than anything she could ever have imagined. The pain was indescribable; it felt like she was on fire. Her legs thrashed; her fingers clawed deep furrows in the pile carpet, and her body quivered, muscles going into spasms in a futile attempt to escape.
Please, please, she mouthed, shakily raising her arms in mute supplication to the man who stood over her.
Something warm splashed onto the skin between her breasts and spattered on her faceplate, and she knew it was semen, and the thought made her weep, in heavy, labored shudders. The substance of new life, splattering over her in sticky strings, and yet millimeters away, she was dying, expiring, drowning.
Life, said her brain, and her hand moved, and touched the sticky semen on her faceplate, and the last sensation she would ever know spread along her arm, and up towards her brain.
Life, she thought, and she felt a wonderful elation, a crushing sadness, a passion beyond belief, beyond mortal experience, as her arms flopped to the floor and her quivering abated, and she was gone at last, her soul fluttering away from the warm body that settled in death on the floor.
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Thanatos@reborn.com