Swimmer by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

surface of the pool, because she was made only of water, like the pool was. Wet footprints crossed the bricks at the side of the pool, the bushes shuddered, and then she was gone.
    Jennie said, ‘You saw it, Jim? You really saw it?’
    Jim nodded. ‘I don’t have any idea what it was. A girl. I could see right through her. It was like she was made out of water.’
    Susan came over. She was looking serious. ‘It used the water to take on physical shape … to give it the strength to pull your son under the water. I’ve heard of spirits using all kinds of things to give themselves leverage in the real world: dust, mud, hair, even trash. Six years ago they found an old man strangled in his cellar in Encino … the door was locked from the inside and there was no other access. In one corner of the cellar, though, there was a heap of old sacking and newspapers and rope and other garbage.
    â€˜The cops called in David DuQuesne. He’s an expert in all kinds of urban legends. It was his belief that the sacking and the newspapers took on some kind of physical form. The old man didn’t have any living enemies that anybody knew of, but it was David’s theory that he had a dead one. A spirit who wanted his revenge.’
    â€˜What do you think, Jim?’ asked Jennie. ‘You saw it, after all.’
    â€˜I don’t know what to think. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen some pretty weird things, believe me.’
    â€˜What I don’t understand is why this spirit should want to hurt Mike.’
    â€˜Well,’ said Jim, ‘I think we’re going to have to do some more research on this. Do you want to tell me where Mike went to school? He didn’t have any problems with classmates, did he?’
    â€˜What are you asking me that for? He was lively, for sure. Well, he was more than lively. He could be real trouble sometimes. But I don’t think that he was having any problems with any of his schoolfriends. Or any other friends, for that matter.’
    â€˜I’m just wondering if he was bullying anybody, that’s all. Maybe some dead relative decided to teach him a lesson.’
    â€˜That sounds pretty far-fetched,’ said Susan; and behind her Medlar Tree spun his finger around the top of his head as if to suggest that Jim was stupid.
    â€˜Maybe it is, but being pulled under the water by a girl made out of nothing but water … being strangled by your own garbage … you don’t think
that’s
far-fetched?’
    Jim drove Susan back to her house on Franklin Avenue. Medlar Tree sat in the back, grinning and waving at the passengers of other cars whenever they stopped for a red signal.
    â€˜I don’t know how you tolerate that guy,’ said Jim. ‘It must be like living with Marcel Marceau.’
    â€˜Medlar Tree isn’t what he seems to be,’ Susan replied. ‘He saved my life once, and it cost him a higher price than most people pay for anything.’
    â€˜I’m sorry. But that doesn’t make him any less of a pain in the rear end.’
    They reached Franklin Avenue and Jim pulled over to the side of the road. ‘I don’t really know what to do next,’ he said. ‘I can hardly go to the police and tell them that young Mike was drowned by a water spirit. They already think I’m nine-tenths crazy as it is.’
    â€˜It doesn’t really make any difference, does it?’ Susan replied. ‘The coroner’s going to say that it was an accident; but at least Jennie will know what happened, and that it wasn’t her fault that Mike died.’
    â€˜The trouble is, her husband’s not going to believe that, is he?’
    â€˜Jim – when you’re a sensitive, all you can do is tell people what you feel. You can’t change their lives for them too. You can
see
things as well as feel them, and that’s a strange and wonderful gift. But it