Page 31 of Someone in the Water

Frankie

The cold wakes me up. I shiver, my body jerking in its search for warmth.

My stomach roils, and my body jerks again, but this time I’m retching.

I twist onto all fours and spew liquid vomit onto the sand.

I close my eyes to stop them watering, but all I can feel is my brain knocking against my skull. I throw up again.

How did I let myself get into this state?

And what the hell am I doing on the beach in the middle of the night?

Gradually, my stomach unclenches. I twist onto my backside and pull my knees up to my chest. I desperately want to go back to my room, to crawl into bed and sleep for days, but the accommodation block feels so very far away.

Too difficult a feat. With blurred vision, I stare at the sea and take tentative steps backwards in my mind.

Archie was drunk. Upset. I drank that shitty local booze with him.

Why was he upset?

Jack. His rough childhood.

Bomb. Family. Suddenly I imagine a burst of flames, a family screaming in fear.

Adrenaline surges through me and I push onto my feet.

I look around, but there’s no sign of Archie.

Where did he go? I screw my face up in concentration, but nothing comes.

My memory of the night ends with him dropping that bombshell.

It’s hard to believe that Archie would leave me out here, but then he was more drunk than me, and distraught.

He wouldn’t have been thinking straight.

Maybe he forgot I was here and wandered off to bed.

I look up the beach, towards the accommodation block. It still feels like an impossible task, but at least I’m on my feet now. Maybe I can make it. One step at a time.

Sometime later – who knows how long, I’ve lost all concept of time – I stumble up to the block’s door and push down the handle.

I expect the hallway to be dark and silent, and I’m desperate for sleep, so when I walk into blinding light, I close my eyes, and the next moment, I’m crying.

I drop my face into my hands, then fold like a deflated balloon onto the floor.

‘Oh my God, Frankie! We were so worried!’ Izzy drops down next to me and curls an arm around my shoulder. ‘Harriet said you were coming straight here from supper, but when I got back you were nowhere to be seen!’

‘I got waylaid,’ I murmur.

‘Until four in the morning?!’ Izzy wails. ‘What happened to you? You look terrible.’

I find the strength to lift my head and open my eyes. Harriet is leaning against the wall opposite. Her face is ashen, like she was genuinely worried about me. It’s more than I would expect from her, and I feel a stirring of gratitude. ‘Is Archie here?’ I ask.

‘Archie?’ Izzy repeats. ‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘Were you with him?’ Harriet asks.

I nod. ‘I took a walk down the beach after supper,’ I start.

‘Towards town?’ Izzy asks.

‘No, the other way. It’s really peaceful out there, and I guess I kept walking. But then I found Archie, and he had some booze. We got talking and …’

‘You got hammered and fell asleep,’ Harriet finishes for me.

‘Except Archie wasn’t there when I woke up. He was pretty drunk. I’m scared he’s wandered off and got lost.’

‘How far down the beach were you?’ Izzy asks.

‘Maybe half an hour,’ I mumble, trying to remember. ‘But it was really remote. We didn’t see anyone.’ I shake my head, and some vague memory of guys shouting slithers out. ‘If Archie fell,’ I go on. ‘Hit his head or whatever, there’d be no one to find him.’

‘Surely it’s more likely that he stumbled back here, like you did,’ Izzy says, curling my hair around my ear. ‘I bet he’s fast asleep in bed now. And you look exhausted. Let’s figure out what happened in the morning.’

‘But what if he hasn’t found his way back? It’s pretty cold out there.’

‘Guys, this is an easy problem to solve,’ Harriet says, pushing off the wall. She walks over to Jack and Archie’s door and raps her knuckles against it. When no one answers, she does it again, louder. But still nothing.

‘Try the handle,’ I suggest. ‘He was drunk enough to forget to lock it.’

Harriet nods, and it seems I’m proved right, because the door swings open. But Harriet doesn’t walk inside. Instead, she turns and gives us a nervous look. ‘It’s empty. Archie isn’t in there, and neither is Jack.’

A cold shiver runs through me. Archie’s words, coming back to haunt me. The crazy thing is, I’m scared to tell you. Has Jack somehow found out that Archie confided in me? Has he done something to him?

‘We need to go and look for him.’ I push up to standing. The world shifts left and right and I swallow a wave of nausea.

‘No way.’ Izzy shakes her head. ‘We all have work tomorrow, and Jack and Archie are big boys now. They can look after themselves.’

‘But you said that Jack was …’

‘Shut up, Frankie.’ Izzy gives me a warning glare.

‘I’ll help you look,’ Harriet says. ‘Give me a sec to get my torch.’ She pushes on her own bedroom door and disappears for a moment.

‘Have you told Archie what I said about Jack?’ Izzy whispers, her voice low but intense.

‘No, of course not,’ I lie, a tremor building in my spine. ‘I promised I wouldn’t.’

Izzy nods, satisfied, I think.

‘Ready to go?’ Harriet says, emerging from her room. ‘Oh, and I thought you could use a jumper.’

I catch the Helly Hansen hoodie that Harriet throws at me and pull it over my T-shirt. It feels like a hug. ‘Are you coming?’ I ask, turning to Izzy.

‘Of course.’ She unfurls from the floor, and we set off, Harriet leading with her torch. We retrace my steps slowly, with Harriet constantly casting light across the beach, from the sea to the trees. Eventually we reach the indent in the sand where I slept.

‘What now?’ Harriet asks.

‘I still think that Archie’s with Jack somewhere,’ Izzy says. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, where’s Jack?’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say. Archie was broken after his conversation with Jack, traumatised.

But perhaps he was also drunk enough to go looking for him.

‘There’s no footprints in the wet sand, thank God, but can we walk home through the woodland?

It’s only up there.’ I gesture towards the black mass at the top of the beach.

‘Just in case he stumbled in there and fell over a tree root or whatever.’

Izzy rolls her eyes, but turns away from the sea, and we walk up the beach to the treeline. Harriet shines her torch into the dark woodland, and the spooky glow reminds me of that terrifying film The Blair Witch Project . I take a step closer to Izzy.

We walk through the woodland, close together, heads twisting over shoulders whenever we hear a noise. After ten or fifteen minutes, I start to relax a little. But then something in the trees lights up.

Harriet screams, drops the torch, stumbles backwards, falls on her backside.

My heart booms. What was it? I pick the torch out of the scrub, lift it with quivering fingers. The image stutters and shakes, but not enough to ease the horror of what I’m seeing.

Archie’s limp body. Hanging from a branch by his belt.