Free Dark Water (Cooper M. Reid Book 1) by Barry Napier Page A

and was able to place his fingers along its sides. He pulled himself up by it, having to fight against the surging water between the rocks. He aimed the flashlight into the hole and saw nothing. There was only blackness, but it was not the solid blackness that made up the rest of the rocks. He was fairly certain that he was looking into a deep, dark hole.
    He could hear water splashing down inside of it. The sound it made led him to believe that the hole (if that’s what it was) was rather deep.
    He leaned closer into it and gave a fairly loud “Hello!”
    His voice reverberated and gave a slight echo. Combined with the water, it was difficult to tell just what was going on in there. He felt around along the steep angled face of the rock, looking for small stones but found only slime and grit.
    Knowing that there was a good chance that he’d promptly regret the decision to do so, Cooper cut off the flashlight and popped open the tab on the end of it. Doing this required two hands and he nearly slid right off of the rock and into the water. He pressed himself into the rock as he worked though, making sure he stayed tight to it.
    He slid the batteries out of the flashlight and palmed them in his hand. He selected one and dropped it into the hole. He leaned forward and listened, making a silent count. He did his best to shut out the sound of the tide and the waves crashing on the shore.
    One, two, three—
    He heard the battery clatter off of something but sensed that it had not come to a complete stop.
    —four, five, six—
    He heard the battery hit something else. This time the sound was more solid. Cooper was pretty sure it had hit bottom. He wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but his mind returned to the fact that on the other side of the beach, closer to the road and where they had parked Stephanie’s car, the ground was rocky and uneven in most places.
    It made him wonder just how expansive the open spaces beneath this rock might be.
    “Cooper?”
    Stephanie’s voice was remarkably clear over the sounds of the sloshing water between the rocks and the waves. He carefully inched his way along the side of the rock, carrying the now useless flashlight in his left hand. He got to the side of the rock and looked out to her. With no light source and no way to really investigate the hole at night, he figured it was time to head back anyway.
    But then he saw her face. Even in the muted moonlight, he could see that she was scared. She was frightened and she was pointing directly at him.
    No, not at him.
    Behind him.
    Cooper turned his head, not daring to let go of the side of the rock, and screamed.
     
     
     
     
     

 
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    A man stood on the second rock behind Cooper. His face was rotten and he had no eyes, only black sockets. When he grinned maliciously at Cooper, the man revealed teeth that were nothing more than brown shapes that looked like wood.
    The scream that came out of Cooper’s mouth sounded strange to him. After all he had seen in his line of work, it took a lot to frighten him and he had developed something of a tolerance for fear. But this gruesome figure had come out of nowhere and was standing less than three feet away.
    Only, the man wasn’t standing.
    There was no way to firmly plant his feet on the sloped surface of the second rock. From what Cooper could tell, the man was floating or, more likely, he was not a man at all.
    It took Cooper less than two seconds to take all of this in. He finished his scream by allowing his fear to also control his hands and feet. He released the rock and went into the water. The current between the rocks caught him at once, tugging him hard to the right. He let it take him and when it pulled him under, he swam furiously until he felt the push of the tide, carrying him towards the shore. He then realized that he was now on the opposite side of the rocks and that the sandbar was nowhere to be found. He swam with it and did not swimming until he