Edge of Darkness

Edge of Darkness

  By Michael Juschke

  www.michaeljuschke.com.au

  www.goodreads.com/author/list/8104823.Michael_Juschke

  Copyright 2012 Michael Juschke

  Cover photo copyright 2007 Michael Juschke

  Commended by City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards 2012

  Thanks to my wife Julienne for her support.

  ISBN: 9781310696541

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, governments, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edge of Darkness

  What had started as the perfect Sunday had turned into a nightmare.

  The three had spent the day at their favourite beach - a secluded spot between rocky outcrops that hardly ever drew many people. It wasn’t good for swimming. It was too shallow for too far and then it suddenly became deep with dangerous currents. John didn’t mind. He couldn’t swim and for his four-year-old daughter Emily the shallows were ideal. Perfect.

  Except, Emily had vanished.

  "Emily!” Stephanie shouted. "Emily!” No answer, just the splashing of the sea, and the whispers of the early evening sea breeze.

  "EMILY! EMILY!” John hollered across the deserted beach.

  He turned to the sun shelter and grabbed his iPhone. He punched the emergency number and put it to his ear. Seconds later he ripped it away, his face contorted. For a moment he stared at the screen.

  "SHIT! No blasted signal!” He peppered the hapless device into the shelter. It bounced a few times, then lay still.

  "Steph! Come back!” She had run half way down the beach, looking and yelling. She didn’t respond. John inhaled. He dashed over and grabbed her shoulder. She spun around, glaring at him, tears running down her face.

  "IT’S YOUR FAULT! YOU were supposed to watch her while I had a shower, not read your stupid books! I’ll never forgive you for this!”

  "My fault?! YOU went off and left her down here without telling me!”

  Stephanie stared at him for a second, mouth open. How dare he!

  "I did tell you! Right here! And you grunted OK.”

  "Did I look at you when I... Ah, forget it, I don’t have time for this. There’s no mobile, we need to race to town to raise the alarm!”

  "WHAT! No! No, no, no. We need to look, we need to find her, fast, before something happens.”

  "Ok. You’ll look, I’ll go.”

  "Yeah, right. Go ahead, abandon us! Again. But don’t bother coming back this time.”

  "You’re again bringing that...”He stopped. Stephanie was glaring at him, her hazel eyes spitting fire.

  "Okay, okay! We search. You take the right, I take... Okay. We search together then.”

  Stephanie turned and took off further down the beach, following tiny footprints in the sand. John was hard on her heels, his stomach knotted, full with rocks. Emily had gone to the water! She couldn’t swim yet. He knew how easy it was to play in the water - and then drown. He had. If it hadn’t been for the Surf Lifesaver resuscitating him.... They had to get an ambulance out here first! Now! Why couldn’t she understand that?

  The footprints curved around to the right, along the beach, next to the water. John took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Emily’s prints meandered for quite a stretch, but then they abruptly turned towards the water and disappeared. John and Stephanie stopped, staring at the sand, the footprints and the water lapping casually up to their feet.

  John heard the sound of loud sobbing. He turned his head. Stephanie was standing there, staring, tears streaming down her face, dripping down into the sand. They stood there for several minutes. The sobbing eased.

  "NO! She did not walk into the water”, Stephanie said to herself. She lifted her head and wiped the tears away. "Just closer to it. The rising tide just flushed the steps away.”

  John looked at the ground, the water. He wasn’t so sure. Stephanie began to walk further, slowly, scanning the ground. John didn’t follow.

  "Steph! It’s getting too dark! We MUST go for help!”

  "No! We’re not leaving here without her!”

  Stephanie fished in the pockets of her shorts. Out came her phone.

  "I told you there’s no signal here!”

  Stephanie ignored him. She wasn’t trying to call. She tapped the Torch App. The phone’s flash came on as a steady light, shining a small, but bright beam onto the sand.

  "There!” she shouted about fifteen minutes later. It was totally dark now. No moon.

  "Where? What?” John looked at the sand where Stephanie’s light was shining.

  At the edge of the light, barely visible, were footprints! A small child’s footprints! John stepped to Stephanie’s side. He stopped just in front of the prints emerging from the water. They could be Emily’s. They had to be Emily’s! Stephanie waved her phone, casting the light wider. The footprints moved up the beach, then turned left past the rocks and vanished into the dark.

  Stephanie’s hands were shaking. She followed the steps. She could see them move left past a large outcropping. Then they turned right, moving further up the beach. Away from the water. A few meters along the footprints ended at the edge of a large rock plateau. Stephanie and John looked along the edges as far as the light reached. No prints. Pristine sand.

  "Emily!” Stephanie called. No response.

  "Emily! Emily!” John shouted. Only the sound of crashing waves replied.

  "What now?” Stephanie said with a quiver in her voice. "And don’t say ‘we go for help’!”

  "Ok.” His first word since she had taken her phone out. "She must have walked across it. Let’s go straight across. The track’s going to be on the other side.”

  They walked onto the rocky surface. Stephanie’s light pacing in front of them. John had hoped there might be a footprint here or there in a sandy patch, but there wasn’t. Small pools of water from last night’s storm, but no sand, no footprints.

  It didn’t take long to reach the other side. They looked at the sand ahead, they looked to the left, they looked to the right. No footprints.

  "You said they were here! HERE! There’s nothing here! She’s not here!” Stephanie shouted, pointing her finger at John. Then she just collapsed into the sand, her face buried in her hands, elbows on her thighs, her small frame convulsing with sobs.

  After a small eternity Stephanie stopped. She lifted her head out of her hands and looked pleadingly at John.

  "We’ve got to follow the edges”, he said. "She had to come off the rock somewhere. I’ll... we go left first.”

  Stephanie got up slowly, her long hair full of sand. The strengthening night breeze howled eerily between the rocks. They turned to the left. The light flowed over the ground. They slowly walked along the ragged line between the rock plateau and the sand.

  "Here! I got them”, John said only a few minutes later.

  "Oh thank you, thank you!” Stephanie muttered.

  John looked at the tracks up ahead and a shiver ran down his spine. They were heading into a crevice between two rock walls, and it was heading towards the water and The Cliff. He could hear the surf too close for comfort. He said nothing. They continued to follow the tracks. How a little girl could walk this far this fast, he didn’t know.

  A few moments later the sand began to glisten, the tracks vanished, the light reflected in sparkles from the surface of water. Water! Just a few meters away. It rose and fell fast, splashing against the rock walls on both sides. John’s heart sank. He looked at Stephanie. She stood frozen, staring at the sand.

  "Steph?”

  "It’s too late!” she whi
spered. She didn’t look up.

  "It’s never too late. Steph we can’t give up now.” She stared at the ground sobbing. John stood there.

  Then he reached over and took Stephanie’s phone. It slipped out of her hand without resistance. John shone the light into the gap ahead. Over the water, up the left wall, then down the right wall. He paused. The gap between the walls was widening. He moved the light a bit more. There! It looked like maybe, just maybe, the right wall was ending not that far away. This crevice might have been dry beach during low tide. Maybe there was a cove on the other side of that wall?

  Slowly, hesitantly John walked into the shallow water. It grew knee deep quickly.

  What if it’s The Cliff? A voice said in his head. He stopped dead. His stomach cramped. The hair on his neck stood on end. The Cliff’s face wasn’t very high, but it dropped straight down below the water line for a lot of meters. Its top side was full of cracks and rain run-off fissures. Many were partially under water during high tide.

  Just like this one.

  John looked back. He had only waded maybe two or three meters. Stephanie still stood there, near the water’s edge, no sign of trying to follow. He looked forward, along the wall. There was definitely an end ahead, or at least a large gap, but it was several meters further into the dark. He shivered, sweat started to trickle down his forehead. If this was The Cliff, he could easily walk right off the edge and not see it coming.

  The weather was calm; good swimmers would be ok if they accidentally walked over the edge and dropped into the deep water. He wouldn’t be, he’d die. He looked back again. Stephanie was an excellent swimmer.

  "Steph?”

  No response. She didn’t even look up.

  "STEPH!!!” She looked over, but her eyes didn’t connect. "Steph, I need you!”

  She looked back at the ground and sat down.

  He looked forward running his torch over the water hoping to see the ground. Not a chance. He looked back at Stephanie again. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then another. Then a third.

  He opened his eyes. Very slowly, very carefully, he waded forward, feeling the ground with his feet before committing a step. There was no way of knowing what was beneath.

  The rocks on his right ended, he was up to his hips in water. He exhaled a breath he didn’t know he had held. He hadn’t walked over any edge to the deep. The rock wall didn’t end in a vertical drop as he had feared. The wall now ran parallel to the water for about half a meter, then it curved away. John let the light run along the edge, his hand shaking. The light didn’t go far, but just at the edge of darkness he could see — sand!

  Then he heard a faint sound. He froze and listened. A wave drowned out everything. Then there it was again, barely audible. A soft, mid-pitched series of tones. Like a cat meowing.

  NO! Not like a cat! Like a small child quietly crying!

  "EMILY?”

  He listened. The sound had stopped.

  "EMILY?!”

  He waited and listened again.

  All was quiet, even the waves. A soft wind breezed through the crevices.

  Then suddenly a shaky, quiet voice seeped out of the dark.

  "Daddy?”

  ## The End ##

  Thank you for reading my short story. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave a review at your favorite retailer, or at my Goodreads page.

  Thanks.

  Michael Juschke

  About the Author

  Michael Juschke lives in Perth, Western Australia. He has a Bachelor Degree in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, and has been working as an IT professional since 1997. He has been a fan of Sci-Fi since his primary school days, where he always enjoyed spinning a story for playing with his mates, or whenever a school fiction essay allowed him to pick his own topics.

  Following his dream to be a writer he finally began his first novel in 2004, while still working full-time in IT. In 2013 he published his first short story "Edge of Darkness", which won him a commendation at the City of Rockingham Short Story Competition that year.

  You can find out more about his work on:

  Michael’s website: www.michaeljuschke.com.au

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaeljuschke

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.juschke

  Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8104823.Michael_Juschke

  (John 3:16)