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

could fully place his feet on the bottom.
    Still, he managed to stand up and when he did, he felt the undertow tugging at him. He lost his footing and went under, his head still craned back as he looked for the figure on the second rock. All he saw, though, was the water as it went over his head. He took in a mouthful of salt water and started coughing and gagging as he tried to swim towards the beach.
    When the next series of waves came surging forward, he caught the current and swam with it again. He kept stroking forward until he felt his knees dragging on dirt. He then stood up and ambled the rest of the way to the beach, still coughing up sea water.
    He turned back to the rocks and was not at all surprised to see that the eyeless figure that had so badly scared him was no longer there.
    Steph came running to him as he went to his butt in the sand. Between the exercise of maneuvering around the rocks, the genuine scare, and then fighting against the current to get back to shore, Cooper was winded.
    “Are you okay?” she asked.
    He gave her a thumbs-up as he coughed up more sea water. Again, he looked back out to the rocks, hoping that they might offer up their secrets again.
    “Cooper, what the hell was that?”
    “I don’t know. A ghost, for sure. But I don’t know which kind.”
    “There’s more than one kind of ghost?”
    “Yeah. Intelligent, residual, poltergeist, and demonic entity.”
    “And which was that?”
    “Are you telling me you believe in ghosts now?”
    Stephanie looked to the rocks and shrugged her shoulders. “Cooper, the man—or ghost or whatever it was—was floating . I didn’t even see his feet. So yeah, I’m off the fence now.”
    “Welcome to the crazy side,” Cooper said. “As for that ghost, I don’t know which kind it was. Pretty sure it’s not demonic. But it’s impossible to tell for sure without knowing more about the location.”
    “You think it’s related to the Blackstock’s house?”
    “It would be really coincidental if it wasn’t. So yeah, I think it might.”
    Stephanie was still looking out to the rocks. Cooper saw that she was trembling slightly. He didn’t think it was because she was cold.
    “Did you see its face?” Cooper asked.
    “Not really.”
    “Good.”
    He stood up, realizing that he still had her flashlight in his hand. He offered it back to her and she took it as if she had never seen it before. Cooper was beginning to wonder if she was in some sort of minor shock.
    “Did you find anything?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. There’s a crack in the rock—a small hole that I couldn’t really see into. I’m pretty sure those rocks are part of the exterior to a tunnel or cave that run under the beach.”
    “Can you tell me about it somewhere else?” she asked. “Quite frankly, I’m ready to get the hell out of here.”
    “Yeah. I can’t really do much about this at night anyway.”
    “You mean you’re not done? After coming face to face with that… thing , you’re going to keep looking?”
    “Of course,” he said.
    He then placed his arm around her shoulders and escorted her back towards the small rocky hill they had come down to reach the beach. She stepped closer to him, leaning into him. They walked back to the car like that, Cooper’s arm around her as they walked as closely together as their bodies would allow.
    Despite the adrenaline and fear still surging through him, Cooper noticed that she was not shying away from him. In her own fear, she was seeking his comfort.
    Another small victory, Cooper thought as they climbed back up the rocky hill and walked to her car.
     

 
     
    11
     
    It was shortly after eleven o’ clock when Cooper pulled Stephanie’s car back into the restaurant parking lot. They made the drive with the windows rolled down, trying to dry Cooper’s pants as much as possible. Stephanie had made him sit on a hooded sweatshirt that she had taken from the trunk of her car, not wanting him to soak her