The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Baptism
by Suzanne Madron

Some would call it drowning. The sudden urgent need to suck in air even though there is no air, the feeling of wet and dry simultaneous as clothes take on water.

He fought the urge to gasp as frigid cold closed over his head. Already his shoes were weighing him down and he struggled to free himself from boots, followed by shirt and pants as he sank.

Below him he saw a glow like fire in the depths and he pushed upward away from it even as his very soul ached to join it. He knew better than to look down again at the glow beneath him. He had known better than to jump into the water on a dare, too, he supposed, and that hadn’t stopped him.

One look couldn’t hurt, he decided. He was already in the water and the weird glow proved the stories about the old quarry had been at least partially true. When he looked beneath him, there was a face in the glow. It looked almost human. Almost, but not quite. He felt a sensation like a river rushing through his head and he was sinking again. His lungs screamed for air even as he stopped trying for the surface.

Bubbles erupted around him and he was pulled upward. The glow disappeared, along with the odd face that would haunt him until the day he returned to that frozen quarry. He tried to explain what he had seen down in the water, but the words were choked by gray water vomited onto stones. He tried to explain, but he was already a new man.

Fiction © Copyright Suzanne Madron
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from Suzanne Madron:

For Sale or Rent

The house across the street seems to go on the market every few months, but this time nothing about the sale is normal, including the new owners. No sooner has the for sale sign come down and the neighborhood is thrown into a Lovecraftian nightmare and the only way to find out is to attend the house warming party.

Available on Amazon!