Free The Sound of Many Waters by Sean Bloomfield

worked. He retched several more times until it felt like his insides should have come out as well. Exhausted and sullied, he collapsed on the ground and gazed up at the men standing around him.
    “You did well,” said Francisco.
    “But I could not keep it down,” said Dominic.
    Francisco’s mouth curved up into a toothless grin. “That was the intention.”

Chapter Eight
    The wave rose and bent toward Zane. This was surely the one. He turned toward the beach and extended the bale in front of his body. He held tight and kicked. Soon he heard the roar of the wave and felt its warm breath on his back and, glancing to his side, saw its cylindrical barrel curling in upon itself. The water pushed him, slowly at first, but then it released him like a slingshot and he surged forward with exhilarating speed.
    He smiled and savored the salty air in his face. But then the bale angled down and caught the front of the wave like a lipped lure and suddenly he was tumbling underwater. His skin grated against the sandy bottom. Water filled his nose. He came up gasping and coughing, but his distress changed to delight when he realized that it was shallow enough to stand. Solid ground under his feet had never felt so pleasing.
    The bale had surfed ahead to the beach and he could see it now sinking into the sand as seawater gushed around it. He waded to the beach and fell to his knees in the foam. He wanted to rest, but he knew he was not safe yet. The man he had seen in the rocket light would not be far behind.
    He struggled to his feet. His limbs felt weak and gelatinous, but he managed to drag the bale up the beach and into the tall, powdery dunes. He found a small dell on the back side of the dunes where he concealed himself and looked out at the beach through the sea oats. He sat there and watched the waves pile in, scanning for any signs of Miguel. A mov e ment soon caught his eye—little bursts of sand were shooting up from the other side of the dune—and he heard a sound like digging.
    He crawled to the edge of the dune and peered over. It took a moment to recognize what he saw. It was a loggerhead sea turtle, massive and encrusted in barnacles, excavating a pit with its hind flippers. The turtle turned its head and regarded Zane with a massive eye. It breathed through its nostrils, emitting a wet hiss.
    “Don’t mind me,” said Zane.
    The turtle turned away and continued digging. Zane receded into the dune and put his hand on the bale beside him. He shivered. A yearning burned inside him. He had not felt such a forceful craving in years. The boat collision was a “trigger event” if there ever was one. He thought of the protocol he had been taught for resisting temptation.
    I admit that I am an addict.
    I admit that I am powerless over my addiction.
    I believe in a power greater than myself.
    But did he? Where was this so-called greater power when Miguel hired him for a fake fishing charter, and when his boat inadvertently crushed another? If ever there existed a reality worth escaping, this was it. He looked at the bale with hunger in his eyes. What the hell was in it? It didn’t matter—it was surely something good. He clawed at the bale like a digging dog, shredding off layers of plastic wrap in long strips. He needed something to fill the void, and he was certain that the bale contained some form of an antidote to his longing.
    When he pierced through the last sheet of plastic skin and was breaking apart the inner layer of Styrofoam, a bright light shone down from above. God’s searchlight, he thought, but with Jupiter more than a hundred miles away, he knew that was impossible. He followed the beam. It did indeed originate at a lighthouse, but this one looked different from the one he knew from home. It stood on the coast like a lonely watchman, its lamp slowly scanning the sea. He realized that he had seen it from the water but from that vantage it looked like another launch pad. Only from the beach could he now