Black Mangroves
By
Benjamin Sperduto
Eric turned his back on his son for only a few seconds, but that was enough time for Julian to scamper over the railing and disappear into the tangled branches and roots of the mangrove swamp. When the park rangers arrived, they were more annoyed than concerned, but that changed when evening approached with no sign of the boy.
Over the next few days, concern gave way to grim resignation. Eric wanted to punch someone the first time he overheard someone mention “the body” instead of “the boy.” The authorities kept up the search for a month with nothing to show for their efforts before giving up and declaring his son dead.
He refused to accept that.
Eric cut the lights as he pulled off the main road and into the preserve. The driveway leading up to the entrance was unlit, but the moon was bright enough for him to find his way and avoid putting the truck into a ditch. He stopped at the gate, shut off the engine, and sat in the gloom.
For a long time, all he heard was his own breathing and the occasional pops of hot air from beneath the truck’s hood.
Then his ears adjusted to the night, picking out the chirps of insects and the steady croaking of frogs along the shoreline. A mosquito buzzed through the open window and bit him on the neck. By the time he swatted it, another followed its lead to bite his forearm.
“Alright, dammit. I get the hint.”
He got out of the truck and headed toward the preserve, which was about a mile from the main gate. The sun had set hours ago, but it was still muggy and miserably hot. Within a few steps, he was sweating.
The trail head wasn’t far from the visitor center. Although he knew nobody would be there at this hour, he waited until he reached the trail itself before switching on his phone’s flashlight. The light made it easier to find his way, but at the cost of strengthening the darkness beyond its reach. Trees loomed larger and thicker in the night, shadowy things observing his every step with predatory interest.
The trail eventually led to a wooden boardwalk, which meandered over the dense mangrove swamp. A black mass of vegetation spread out below the deck railing, soaking up the moonlight before it could reach the muddy ground. He walked along the boardwalk until he reached a gate built into its railing. A wooden sign indicated “DO NOT ENTER. RESEARCH AREA” in yellow, hand-painted lettering. Beyond the sign, a set of steps led down to a dry mound of dirt that sloped into the briny muck.
This was it. The last place he’d seen his son alive.
The gate’s latch was locked with a heavy-duty padlock, so he swung his legs over the railing and eased himself down to the stairs.
Eric slipped the phone into his pocket, then climbed over the railing to pick his way through the mangrove thickets, the thin branches scratching his exposed skin and pulling at his clothing with each step. His feet sank ankle-deep into the mud and a cloud of biting gnats and mosquitos swirled around him in the dark as he pressed onward.
How could there be no body?
That was the question he could never let go. The park rangers offered a multitude of explanations, of course.
Alligators.
The mud.
The tidewater.
Perhaps someone had snatched him away and he’d never ventured into the swamp at all.
His wife, Katherine, eager for any excuse that might allow her to move on, accepted most of them at one point or another. He accused her of giving up whenever she dared to imagine what life might be like without Julian.
One night, he pushed her too far and she stormed out of the house.
Katherine hadn’t spoken to him since then.
They would be together again.
After he found Julian, everything would be back to the way it was.
The ground softened as he pushed deeper into the mangroves, swallowing him almost to his knees. Birds and frogs protested the intrusion, squawking and croaking from the darkness. Occasionally, something splashed in the distance. The drone of buzzing, chirping insects grew louder.
He had to be getting close, close to where he knew Julian must have gone.
Closer to the black mangroves.
Not actual black mangroves, of course. Those were all around him. The mangroves he sought were black as crude oil, almost invisible in the dark. During the day the light burned away their shadowy coating, but once the sun sank below the horizon, the darkness oozed from the bark again, covering the mangroves in a sticky layer of inky sap.
Eric first learned of them from an anonymous letter left in his mailbox. The sender claimed to have heard about his son’s disappearance and had an alternative theory the authorities would never consider. Desperate, he called the number included in the letter, which was how he ended up meeting a strange old woman at the end of a lonely pier.
“If your son passed through the black mangroves,” she’d said, “then he is lost beyond the reach of those searching for him. But not impossible to find for one who knows where to look.”
Eric didn’t listen closely to the particulars of her story. He was too busy waiting to hear what help she could offer.
And what it would cost…
“A pinch should be enough,” she said when she handed over the bag of dust. “Enough to open the way through the black mangroves. But be wary. Linger for too long and you’ll never find your way back again.”
He paid her considerable price and left her standing alone at the end of the pier.
When he looked back, she was gone.
Eric reached into his pocket to make sure the bag was still there.
“Come on, dammit. Where are you?”
He half crawled, half stumbled through the tangle of mangrove limbs and roots. Only a few scattered shafts of moonlight penetrated the swamp’s canopy, making it difficult to make out anything beyond his outstretched arms.
But he didn’t need to see to find his way. Something out there called to him, beckoning him through the darkness and the overgrown maze.
His hand closed around a branch covered with a sticky, wet sap. He recoiled, then paused, remembering how the old woman had described the black mangroves. The air tasted different here, like spoiled fruit mixed with corroded metal.
He switched the phone light on and slowly raised it to illuminate the branches ahead.
A black substance seeped through the mangroves’ roots, trunk, and branches, like tar bubbling up through dirt. Steam rose from the pitch whenever the light touched it.
Something rustled faintly beneath the sounds of the swamp, like uneven breathing or whispers slipping through the damp air.
“I’m coming, Julian.”
He switched off his phone and opened the pouch of dust.
Just a pinch, she’d said, but there wasn’t much more than that in the bag, so he emptied all of it into his mouth and swallowed.
The stuff tasted like sand mixed with charcoal and chili pepper. He gagged when it hit the back of his throat, but managed to gulp it down. After swallowing, he placed his hands on the black mangrove like the old woman instructed.
He closed his eyes and waited.
How long he stood there in the knee deep muck while the bugs feasted upon him, he couldn’t say. Thirty seconds or thirty minutes, it was all the same in the dark of night.
The viscous substance secreting from the mangrove bark oozed between his fingers and over his hands like honey being poured from a jar. Pressure welled up inside his skull and the noises around him bent in upon themselves, warping and twisting and echoing into an unrecognizable dirge.
Then his body jerked forward while some unseen force yanked his guts and his heart and his lungs in opposite directions. The pressure in his head burst outward, splattering his brain against the inside of his skull and draining from his nose and ears. He tried to gasp, but the air had thickened, pouring down his throat like a syrup gone sour.
Survival instincts overcame his resolve. He pried his hands away from the tree and stumbled backward, coughing. A few violent hacks dredged up the contents of his stomach and he doubled over to vomit into the briny water.
When he finished choking, he reached for his phone, but the screen remained dead and blank when he tried to switch on the light.
“Fuck.”
His head still felt like it was cracked open, and his guts wound into impossibly tight knots. Other than that and a faint tingling sensation in his fingertips, he felt normal.
Had he done something wrong?
He’d followed the woman’s instructions exactly. If what she claimed was true, he should have crossed over the threshold into whatever dark place had snatched Julian away.
Assuming, of course, she hadn’t simply scammed him out of his money with promises too good to be true.
A branch snapped somewhere in the darkness behind him, followed by the sound of something heavy sloshing in the mud.
Could be a fish floundering. Or a big bird. Or a gator.
Or…
“Julian?” he said, calling out as loudly as he dared.
Only then did he realize that the swamp, which had moments ago been buzzing with life, had fallen silent. Aside from the gentle lapping of water and an occasional splashing nearby, the night was still.
No buzzing insects. No croaking frogs. Nothing.
The clammy air clung to his sweaty skin, causing him to shiver despite the heat.
“Weird.”
Unsure of what to do next, he turned around to retrace his path back to the boardwalk.
Clouds must have rolled in overhead to smother the moonlight. He could barely see anything before bumped into it.
The mangroves were higher and denser than he remembered, their branches and roots thicker and more tangled, making it difficult to make much forward progress. He had to sidestep, crouch, and climb to get through the mess of vegetation.
It hadn’t seemed like such a long walk before. Had he ventured so far out or had he lost his way?
He tripped over a root and splashed face-first into the fetid brine. His hands sank into the muck when he tried to push himself up, as if some primordial force was pulling him deeper. He panicked, fearful that he might drown, but he managed to get his legs underneath him so he could lift his head above the surface and take a breath.
When he opened his eyes, he saw it.
A single shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds and the mangrove canopy to spotlight a small, pale face staring at him with curious eyes through a gap in the foliage.
“Julian?”
He blinked and the moonlight broke apart like fading mist, taking his son’s face with it.
Blindly, he charged forward, plunging deeper into the mangrove thickets.
Julian was out here somewhere. The knowledge injected a newfound strength into his aching limbs, and he ignored the sharp branches that slashed at him with every step.
“Julian!”
He called out louder this time. The night air swallowed up the sound of his voice before it carried too far, and he feared he might stumble past the boy in the dark.
“Julian!”
Something heavy sloshed in the muck behind him, sluggish and slow, but moving closer. He heard labored, wet breathing as it closed in, and he increased his pace. His careless momentum disturbed the darkness like a drowning man splashing in the water, and drawing the attention of an alien presence in the gloom.
Panic pushed him through the undergrowth even more recklessly. Unseen things awakened to his passage, stirring, snarling, and scrambling after him. The mangroves themselves seemed to come to life now, their gnarled branches whipping and grasping to ensnare him.
He pulled free and pushed on, panting and gasping as he struggled to keep ahead of the hungry jaws of the dark.
“Julian! Where are you?”
This time, someone answered.
“Dad?”
The sound of that nearly forgotten voice almost made him stop, but adrenaline and pure, frantic instinct kept him moving forward.
“Julian! I’m coming!”
He groped his way over a heavy branch and nearly fell headlong into a deep pool. The surface of the water churned, and a great mass of fangs and sucker-studded tentacles burst out to grasp at him.
Eric lost his balance and fell forward, tumbling toward the certain death gaping below.
Then something grasped his arm and jerked him back from the snapping maw and whipping tendrils.
He tumbled over a fallen log and splashed into the mud. His head plunged beneath the water momentarily before he jerked upright again. When he did, he found a familiar face staring back at him.
“Julian!”
The boy didn’t respond, instead seizing his father’s hand and pulling him to his feet as the gnashing, snapping horror in the pool spilled over the roots and branches after them.
Before Eric could react, Julian had dragged him clear of the water and through a maze of thickets, leaving their pursuer ensnared and snarling in the distance.
Eric was too relieved to be away from the creature and too overjoyed by the sight of his son to wonder at the boy’s newfound strength. Julian was pulling him through the underbrush so quickly that he could hardly keep his feet beneath him.
“Julian, wait! Slow down!”
The boy said nothing but slowed his relentless pace enough for Eric to keep up.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
The answer only confused Eric more. If Julian knew the way home, what had kept him in that terrible place for so long?
He tried to pull free, but Julian’s grip was too tight. They ran on for a long distance before the boy finally stopped.
They stood at the edge of a small pool. A thin sheet of mist hung over the surface, while a thicker cloud hovered among the canopy of the mangroves.
Ignoring everything else, Eric threw his arms around his son as he broke into tears.
“I knew it! I knew I’d find you here! I’m so sorry it took me this long to find you.”
Julian returned the gesture of affection, but it was only a gesture. His grip was light, with no emotion behind it.
“It’s okay, Dad,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you. Where’s Mom? Isn’t she coming too?”
Where to even begin with that?
“She… she really wanted to be here, but I had to make sure it was safe first. We can go see her just as soon as we get home, okay?”
Julian pulled away from him. The boy’s skin had turned pale, his eyes almost completely black.
His face was cold, almost like a picture frozen in time.
“She should have come with you. But that’s okay. Now that you’ve come, we can go find her ourselves.”
For the first time, Eric felt a tinge of unease.
And doubt.
“Julian, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
The boy pointed at the still surface of the pool. “There.”
Eric hesitated, bewildered. A hundred questions rushed through his mind, but then, almost without awareness of what he was doing, he waded into the pool.
His feet sank into the muddy bottom up to his ankles. He slogged toward the center, and the water was up to his waist when his foot bumped something in the muck.
It flopped limply in the water, too soft and pliant to be a branch.
Holding his breath, he reached down, grasping until his fingers closed around wet fabric.
He pulled.
The bloated corpse floated up to the surface, its cloudy eyes and waterlogged face staring at him with a mixture of terror and accusation.
Eric’s heart broke and he screamed.
He hugged Julian’s dead body to his chest, sobbing and choking on the grief he’d kept buried deeply for much too long.
He didn’t hear the water splashing behind him until a firm hand closed around his arm.
When he turned, he met a gaze that was both familiar and monstrous.
Save for the pallid skin and the dark eyes, the face was identical to the one he saw in the mirror every day. Over the copy’s shoulder, he saw the being that was not Julian watching them from the shore. Behind him stood something that resembled Katherine in every way save for warmth and compassion.
“What—?”
The figure’s other hand shot to his throat and squeezed hard, closing off his windpipe. Then it shoved forward with all its considerable strength and forced Eric under the water.
He struggled, clawing at the rigid arm holding him under, but he might as well have been trying to bend a steel bar with his bare hands.
The fight bled from his muscles as consciousness faltered.
Julian’s limp body fell against his and he wrapped his arms around it.
At least they were together now.
***
Eric had been silent for two weeks before Katherine broke down and drove to the house. Judging by the rotting food in the sink, he’d been gone for some time.
She found a handwritten letter on the counter. A chill settled into her bones as she read it.
There was a phone number at the end.
Katherine took out her phone and dialed.
Someone answered, but said nothing.
Katherine held her breath until her lungs hurt.
“Tell me about the black mangroves.”
Ben Sperduto writes weird fiction that slithers across the boundaries of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. The author of Blackspire and several short stories, he studies and teaches writing in Tampa, Florida. He remains optimistic that his work will one day be banned by the state or cause it to sink into the ocean.
By
Benjamin Sperduto
Eric turned his back on his son for only a few seconds, but that was enough time for Julian to scamper over the railing and disappear into the tangled branches and roots of the mangrove swamp. When the park rangers arrived, they were more annoyed than concerned, but that changed when evening approached with no sign of the boy.
Over the next few days, concern gave way to grim resignation. Eric wanted to punch someone the first time he overheard someone mention “the body” instead of “the boy.” The authorities kept up the search for a month with nothing to show for their efforts before giving up and declaring his son dead.
He refused to accept that.
Eric cut the lights as he pulled off the main road and into the preserve. The driveway leading up to the entrance was unlit, but the moon was bright enough for him to find his way and avoid putting the truck into a ditch. He stopped at the gate, shut off the engine, and sat in the gloom.
For a long time, all he heard was his own breathing and the occasional pops of hot air from beneath the truck’s hood.
Then his ears adjusted to the night, picking out the chirps of insects and the steady croaking of frogs along the shoreline. A mosquito buzzed through the open window and bit him on the neck. By the time he swatted it, another followed its lead to bite his forearm.
“Alright, dammit. I get the hint.”
He got out of the truck and headed toward the preserve, which was about a mile from the main gate. The sun had set hours ago, but it was still muggy and miserably hot. Within a few steps, he was sweating.
The trail head wasn’t far from the visitor center. Although he knew nobody would be there at this hour, he waited until he reached the trail itself before switching on his phone’s flashlight. The light made it easier to find his way, but at the cost of strengthening the darkness beyond its reach. Trees loomed larger and thicker in the night, shadowy things observing his every step with predatory interest.
The trail eventually led to a wooden boardwalk, which meandered over the dense mangrove swamp. A black mass of vegetation spread out below the deck railing, soaking up the moonlight before it could reach the muddy ground. He walked along the boardwalk until he reached a gate built into its railing. A wooden sign indicated “DO NOT ENTER. RESEARCH AREA” in yellow, hand-painted lettering. Beyond the sign, a set of steps led down to a dry mound of dirt that sloped into the briny muck.
This was it. The last place he’d seen his son alive.
The gate’s latch was locked with a heavy-duty padlock, so he swung his legs over the railing and eased himself down to the stairs.
Eric slipped the phone into his pocket, then climbed over the railing to pick his way through the mangrove thickets, the thin branches scratching his exposed skin and pulling at his clothing with each step. His feet sank ankle-deep into the mud and a cloud of biting gnats and mosquitos swirled around him in the dark as he pressed onward.
How could there be no body?
That was the question he could never let go. The park rangers offered a multitude of explanations, of course.
Alligators.
The mud.
The tidewater.
Perhaps someone had snatched him away and he’d never ventured into the swamp at all.
His wife, Katherine, eager for any excuse that might allow her to move on, accepted most of them at one point or another. He accused her of giving up whenever she dared to imagine what life might be like without Julian.
One night, he pushed her too far and she stormed out of the house.
Katherine hadn’t spoken to him since then.
They would be together again.
After he found Julian, everything would be back to the way it was.
The ground softened as he pushed deeper into the mangroves, swallowing him almost to his knees. Birds and frogs protested the intrusion, squawking and croaking from the darkness. Occasionally, something splashed in the distance. The drone of buzzing, chirping insects grew louder.
He had to be getting close, close to where he knew Julian must have gone.
Closer to the black mangroves.
Not actual black mangroves, of course. Those were all around him. The mangroves he sought were black as crude oil, almost invisible in the dark. During the day the light burned away their shadowy coating, but once the sun sank below the horizon, the darkness oozed from the bark again, covering the mangroves in a sticky layer of inky sap.
Eric first learned of them from an anonymous letter left in his mailbox. The sender claimed to have heard about his son’s disappearance and had an alternative theory the authorities would never consider. Desperate, he called the number included in the letter, which was how he ended up meeting a strange old woman at the end of a lonely pier.
“If your son passed through the black mangroves,” she’d said, “then he is lost beyond the reach of those searching for him. But not impossible to find for one who knows where to look.”
Eric didn’t listen closely to the particulars of her story. He was too busy waiting to hear what help she could offer.
And what it would cost…
“A pinch should be enough,” she said when she handed over the bag of dust. “Enough to open the way through the black mangroves. But be wary. Linger for too long and you’ll never find your way back again.”
He paid her considerable price and left her standing alone at the end of the pier.
When he looked back, she was gone.
Eric reached into his pocket to make sure the bag was still there.
“Come on, dammit. Where are you?”
He half crawled, half stumbled through the tangle of mangrove limbs and roots. Only a few scattered shafts of moonlight penetrated the swamp’s canopy, making it difficult to make out anything beyond his outstretched arms.
But he didn’t need to see to find his way. Something out there called to him, beckoning him through the darkness and the overgrown maze.
His hand closed around a branch covered with a sticky, wet sap. He recoiled, then paused, remembering how the old woman had described the black mangroves. The air tasted different here, like spoiled fruit mixed with corroded metal.
He switched the phone light on and slowly raised it to illuminate the branches ahead.
A black substance seeped through the mangroves’ roots, trunk, and branches, like tar bubbling up through dirt. Steam rose from the pitch whenever the light touched it.
Something rustled faintly beneath the sounds of the swamp, like uneven breathing or whispers slipping through the damp air.
“I’m coming, Julian.”
He switched off his phone and opened the pouch of dust.
Just a pinch, she’d said, but there wasn’t much more than that in the bag, so he emptied all of it into his mouth and swallowed.
The stuff tasted like sand mixed with charcoal and chili pepper. He gagged when it hit the back of his throat, but managed to gulp it down. After swallowing, he placed his hands on the black mangrove like the old woman instructed.
He closed his eyes and waited.
How long he stood there in the knee deep muck while the bugs feasted upon him, he couldn’t say. Thirty seconds or thirty minutes, it was all the same in the dark of night.
The viscous substance secreting from the mangrove bark oozed between his fingers and over his hands like honey being poured from a jar. Pressure welled up inside his skull and the noises around him bent in upon themselves, warping and twisting and echoing into an unrecognizable dirge.
Then his body jerked forward while some unseen force yanked his guts and his heart and his lungs in opposite directions. The pressure in his head burst outward, splattering his brain against the inside of his skull and draining from his nose and ears. He tried to gasp, but the air had thickened, pouring down his throat like a syrup gone sour.
Survival instincts overcame his resolve. He pried his hands away from the tree and stumbled backward, coughing. A few violent hacks dredged up the contents of his stomach and he doubled over to vomit into the briny water.
When he finished choking, he reached for his phone, but the screen remained dead and blank when he tried to switch on the light.
“Fuck.”
His head still felt like it was cracked open, and his guts wound into impossibly tight knots. Other than that and a faint tingling sensation in his fingertips, he felt normal.
Had he done something wrong?
He’d followed the woman’s instructions exactly. If what she claimed was true, he should have crossed over the threshold into whatever dark place had snatched Julian away.
Assuming, of course, she hadn’t simply scammed him out of his money with promises too good to be true.
A branch snapped somewhere in the darkness behind him, followed by the sound of something heavy sloshing in the mud.
Could be a fish floundering. Or a big bird. Or a gator.
Or…
“Julian?” he said, calling out as loudly as he dared.
Only then did he realize that the swamp, which had moments ago been buzzing with life, had fallen silent. Aside from the gentle lapping of water and an occasional splashing nearby, the night was still.
No buzzing insects. No croaking frogs. Nothing.
The clammy air clung to his sweaty skin, causing him to shiver despite the heat.
“Weird.”
Unsure of what to do next, he turned around to retrace his path back to the boardwalk.
Clouds must have rolled in overhead to smother the moonlight. He could barely see anything before bumped into it.
The mangroves were higher and denser than he remembered, their branches and roots thicker and more tangled, making it difficult to make much forward progress. He had to sidestep, crouch, and climb to get through the mess of vegetation.
It hadn’t seemed like such a long walk before. Had he ventured so far out or had he lost his way?
He tripped over a root and splashed face-first into the fetid brine. His hands sank into the muck when he tried to push himself up, as if some primordial force was pulling him deeper. He panicked, fearful that he might drown, but he managed to get his legs underneath him so he could lift his head above the surface and take a breath.
When he opened his eyes, he saw it.
A single shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds and the mangrove canopy to spotlight a small, pale face staring at him with curious eyes through a gap in the foliage.
“Julian?”
He blinked and the moonlight broke apart like fading mist, taking his son’s face with it.
Blindly, he charged forward, plunging deeper into the mangrove thickets.
Julian was out here somewhere. The knowledge injected a newfound strength into his aching limbs, and he ignored the sharp branches that slashed at him with every step.
“Julian!”
He called out louder this time. The night air swallowed up the sound of his voice before it carried too far, and he feared he might stumble past the boy in the dark.
“Julian!”
Something heavy sloshed in the muck behind him, sluggish and slow, but moving closer. He heard labored, wet breathing as it closed in, and he increased his pace. His careless momentum disturbed the darkness like a drowning man splashing in the water, and drawing the attention of an alien presence in the gloom.
Panic pushed him through the undergrowth even more recklessly. Unseen things awakened to his passage, stirring, snarling, and scrambling after him. The mangroves themselves seemed to come to life now, their gnarled branches whipping and grasping to ensnare him.
He pulled free and pushed on, panting and gasping as he struggled to keep ahead of the hungry jaws of the dark.
“Julian! Where are you?”
This time, someone answered.
“Dad?”
The sound of that nearly forgotten voice almost made him stop, but adrenaline and pure, frantic instinct kept him moving forward.
“Julian! I’m coming!”
He groped his way over a heavy branch and nearly fell headlong into a deep pool. The surface of the water churned, and a great mass of fangs and sucker-studded tentacles burst out to grasp at him.
Eric lost his balance and fell forward, tumbling toward the certain death gaping below.
Then something grasped his arm and jerked him back from the snapping maw and whipping tendrils.
He tumbled over a fallen log and splashed into the mud. His head plunged beneath the water momentarily before he jerked upright again. When he did, he found a familiar face staring back at him.
“Julian!”
The boy didn’t respond, instead seizing his father’s hand and pulling him to his feet as the gnashing, snapping horror in the pool spilled over the roots and branches after them.
Before Eric could react, Julian had dragged him clear of the water and through a maze of thickets, leaving their pursuer ensnared and snarling in the distance.
Eric was too relieved to be away from the creature and too overjoyed by the sight of his son to wonder at the boy’s newfound strength. Julian was pulling him through the underbrush so quickly that he could hardly keep his feet beneath him.
“Julian, wait! Slow down!”
The boy said nothing but slowed his relentless pace enough for Eric to keep up.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
The answer only confused Eric more. If Julian knew the way home, what had kept him in that terrible place for so long?
He tried to pull free, but Julian’s grip was too tight. They ran on for a long distance before the boy finally stopped.
They stood at the edge of a small pool. A thin sheet of mist hung over the surface, while a thicker cloud hovered among the canopy of the mangroves.
Ignoring everything else, Eric threw his arms around his son as he broke into tears.
“I knew it! I knew I’d find you here! I’m so sorry it took me this long to find you.”
Julian returned the gesture of affection, but it was only a gesture. His grip was light, with no emotion behind it.
“It’s okay, Dad,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you. Where’s Mom? Isn’t she coming too?”
Where to even begin with that?
“She… she really wanted to be here, but I had to make sure it was safe first. We can go see her just as soon as we get home, okay?”
Julian pulled away from him. The boy’s skin had turned pale, his eyes almost completely black.
His face was cold, almost like a picture frozen in time.
“She should have come with you. But that’s okay. Now that you’ve come, we can go find her ourselves.”
For the first time, Eric felt a tinge of unease.
And doubt.
“Julian, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
The boy pointed at the still surface of the pool. “There.”
Eric hesitated, bewildered. A hundred questions rushed through his mind, but then, almost without awareness of what he was doing, he waded into the pool.
His feet sank into the muddy bottom up to his ankles. He slogged toward the center, and the water was up to his waist when his foot bumped something in the muck.
It flopped limply in the water, too soft and pliant to be a branch.
Holding his breath, he reached down, grasping until his fingers closed around wet fabric.
He pulled.
The bloated corpse floated up to the surface, its cloudy eyes and waterlogged face staring at him with a mixture of terror and accusation.
Eric’s heart broke and he screamed.
He hugged Julian’s dead body to his chest, sobbing and choking on the grief he’d kept buried deeply for much too long.
He didn’t hear the water splashing behind him until a firm hand closed around his arm.
When he turned, he met a gaze that was both familiar and monstrous.
Save for the pallid skin and the dark eyes, the face was identical to the one he saw in the mirror every day. Over the copy’s shoulder, he saw the being that was not Julian watching them from the shore. Behind him stood something that resembled Katherine in every way save for warmth and compassion.
“What—?”
The figure’s other hand shot to his throat and squeezed hard, closing off his windpipe. Then it shoved forward with all its considerable strength and forced Eric under the water.
He struggled, clawing at the rigid arm holding him under, but he might as well have been trying to bend a steel bar with his bare hands.
The fight bled from his muscles as consciousness faltered.
Julian’s limp body fell against his and he wrapped his arms around it.
At least they were together now.
***
Eric had been silent for two weeks before Katherine broke down and drove to the house. Judging by the rotting food in the sink, he’d been gone for some time.
She found a handwritten letter on the counter. A chill settled into her bones as she read it.
There was a phone number at the end.
Katherine took out her phone and dialed.
Someone answered, but said nothing.
Katherine held her breath until her lungs hurt.
“Tell me about the black mangroves.”
Ben Sperduto writes weird fiction that slithers across the boundaries of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. The author of Blackspire and several short stories, he studies and teaches writing in Tampa, Florida. He remains optimistic that his work will one day be banned by the state or cause it to sink into the ocean.
