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The Price	By : pip Category: -Misc TV Shows > Het - Male/Female Views: 2858 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own the public information film 'Dark and Lonely Water' nor any of the characters from it. I make no money from this.

Chapter List
- 1-The Price
- 2-Chapter Two
- 1
- 2
Author's Notes:
So this entire story exists with thanks to JayDee, who had the idea, and gave me the honour of writing it. I can only hope that this (a) makes sense, and (b) lives up to your expectations!
Extra warnings for this chapter are: Character death, mental illness, suicide, rape. Please think before you read.
Review replies will be posted here: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/61848-pippychicks-review-replies-tv/

Chapter Two
It was the same thing, somehow, hanging there just as it had when she'd picked it up and taken it home. There was no doubt now whatsoever in her mind. And throughout all these years since that long ago day when she'd first touched it. Why? It was an empty shroud, not a ghost. As soon as she'd had the thought, the dreams came to the forefront of her mind. Not a ghost? Yeah, right. She had an immediate recollection of his wet lips, how she'd hated the inevitable reaction of her body to his coolness, her nipple stiff and puckered in his mouth, while his fingers... she gasped at the memory, her entire body tensing up as if she were there again.
“No, no, no!” she said, out loud, and shook her head to clear it, teeth clenched, her eyes scrunched tightly closed.
It didn't go away. That, coupled with the resurgence of the physical tremor inside her made her sink slowly to her knees in the mud. It didn't matter. There wasn't a single person around for at least half a mile.
It was like having a bumble bee trapped inside her lower body, that heavy buzzing seeping through her until she gasped. Not now!
There was only one way these attacks ended. Caught out in the wide open space, with nowhere quiet to hide until it was over. Just because she knew there wasn't anyone around now, that didn't mean someone wouldn't be along in the next twenty minutes, maybe with a dog.
Better this than be found, yet surrender didn't ease her self-loathing as she hitched up her already short skirt to her thighs, and slipped the fingers of one hand under the strip of material that covered her. One of her fingers forced its way between her lips to touch her clitoris and she drew in a sharp breath. Her hands were cold. It was horrendous. It was also fucking perfect.
With a view to finishing as soon as possible, she let her weight fall forward to rest on her free hand, while with her other she pleasured her body quickly.
She was frantic to get it over with before anyone could come upon her, so she concentrated, eyes closed, and after all it was only a minute or two before she groaned quietly, her hand just managing to move well enough to tease out the aftershocks as her body relaxed, the sensation and recollection of his touch gone at last. At least, until the next time. What had become of her? The person she used to be seemed all but gone. Washed away like writing in the sand.
The hand she was resting her weight on slipped, and she opened her eyes, blinking to clear the tears that had gathered, watched them fall into the grey, lifeless mud. And then she saw. Almost close enough for her lips to kiss, the bottom of the cloak was gathered in small folds before her. If the apparition had any feet to see, they were covered. Had it walked? Christ... floated!? She didn't dare to look up, but scrambled back, twisting her body so she could keep her eyes down on the ground where it was, to make sure it didn't move.
She managed to lurch unsteadily to her feet before she saw it begin to follow her, and a long, loud scream echoed out over the canal. At first she believed it was her own voice, but she was still out of breath and dizzy as she backed away, pulling her skirt down in misplaced propriety.
“Katherine,” said a disapproving human voice as she stared at the trailing edge of the robe on the ground, moving slowly towards her, and for now that took all of her attention. She skittered back amongst the junk, catching her elbow on a rusty shopping trolley, tripping and almost falling over a black bag full of rubbish, until she ran into an impassable jumble of barbed wire, that pricked her back and made her hiss in surprised pain.
At last she looked up, prepared for her worst fears. “No one calls me that!” she shouted, and then gulped, as if she would take the defiance back. Now, close to catching up with her, it was so tall that to look at it felt like shrinking. What light there was in the dull afternoon was behind the figure in black. The hood hung down low so she couldn't see anything. The only surety was that someone was in there.
Wincing as it reached her, she turned her face as far away as she could while still keeping the hood in her sight. It stopped before her, and then to her amazement it held out a hand, empty palm upwards. It appeared to be waiting for something. Kath stared, her heart slowing down a little, studying that hand. It was a normal hand. A man's hand. The nails were a little too long. Her gaze followed the creases and lines in it like a map. Someone must be playing a trick on her! She opened her mouth to give whoever it was a few choice words, but then the empty hand withdrew and the mysterious figure beat her to it.
“You dreamed of me,” it stated. The voice wasn't the one which haunted her dreams, it was deep and human, but full of knowledge, as if weary. It spoke perfect English without a trace of an accent.
“Yes.” Her fear and anger subsided, but it was a strange kind of relief. Becalmed, like ancient sailors would say of the sea, unable to move any which way. It was as though the world had stopped turning.
“Good. And despite that you bring me nothing.” It bent slightly, inclining so that the hood moved closer to her. “Are you afraid, girl?”
A flare of terror existed then, for no more than a second, almost as if she'd been permitted to feel it. The voice was not his, not obscenely wet and dead. It was like being addressed by a headteacher as a small child. She nodded slowly.
The hand was there again, but this time it shot out and grabbed the front of her clothing and pulled her forward, lifting her almost off her feet so that she had to stand on tiptoe to keep her balance.
Despite the fact it had at least one hand, there wasn't anything particularly substantial about whatever was concealed by the robe, and she panicked as she grasped handfuls of black material. It was like falling into a thick stage curtain, heavy, suffocating and slightly musty. At least it was heavy enough that she kept her feet.
“What did you dream?” There was enough curiosity in his voice to convince her he didn't know, and that was worse. She didn't speak, only remembered, but that was plenty if his reaction was anything to go by.
A low rumbling began, and it was a moment or two before she realised it was laughing. It let her go, and she regained her balance, pushing back and away from it, indignant and embarrassed.
“Don't laugh at me!” she shouted and turned away to run. Just in time she remembered the barbed wire, and threw up her arms to protect her face, crying out in pain when the barbs tore at her skin as she recoiled from it. Realising she was cornered, she turned to face it, made furious by pain and humiliation.
“Why are you here?” she asked as the laughter subsided, daring to look away for an instant to their surroundings. It wasn't much more than a rubbish tip. “What are you?” It simply stood before her, saying nothing.
Something else occurred to her then, something terrible. Something worse than the idea of someone playing a practical joke, especially given the way her dreams had invaded her waking life until she could barely tell the difference. Her voice quietened as she asked: “Are you even real?” The apparition pulled back as if in surprise. He ignored her for the longest time, and then inclined his head.
“There is something I must tell you,” it said, serious now. “Something that you already know, really.”
“I do?” It was barely spoken, because he was right. She knew, somehow, what he was going to tell her, and she dreaded him speaking again.
“A while ago you walked to the canal,” he said. She saw herself doing it, as if reality had fractured like a mirror, so that now she had more than one version of herself. She saw and experienced it simultaneously. “The balance of your mind was upset,” he continued, not unkindly, and tears sprang up in her eyes. It was true, wasn't it? She had been tormented and disturbed as she'd walked, the leafless, skeletal trees lined the path like silent observers. The constant cold that wouldn't let her alone, everything in her life had seemed as insubstantial as water. Little by little, the events were revealed to her, and she performed them helplessly, watched from the bank, unable to change any of it. “You made certain you were all alone. You walked into the water –”
“Stop!” she said, hating to have the knowledge of it, whilst at the same time she did wade into the cold, murky water. She felt how deeply her feet sank into the sediment, the swirl of the cold water as it made its way inside her clothes, the smell of the mud, earthy and real. “I know. I remember. I'm there. I'm still here.” She burbled the last few sentences in a panic, unable to stop herself from performing all of the actions he described. Before the mud tripped her she whipped her head around, and saw him standing a short distance away on solid ground.
“You watched,” she said, safe on the shore, accusing. Though what she accused him of she didn't know.
“You would not have survived,” he told her, definitively. Then she knew.
“No,” she protested. Somehow, it had stolen her away before it was all over. “That's not fair! It's too soon. I can go back!” She was back, repeating that moment of madness as if it were a television clip, and again she was wading into the water, walking forward until it was lapping against her chin. She felt the ground pulling at her feet, about to trip her up, her balance precarious. “I can change it!” The hope bubbled up in her. It wasn't too late!
“No! I will not allow it.” On the bank he grabbed her by the wrist, keeping her close and still. In contrast to earlier, now she could feel the outline of his limbs. His arms encircled her.
“You owe me, girl,” he said, something vicious and selfish in his voice. “A far larger debt than safe passage.”
Again, she recalled the dreams, but now they had no power. “It all got mixed up. You, and drowning,” she said in realisation. She had fallen, deep, right there, trapped by the ground and the dead vegetation beneath the canal, pulling helplessly against it. She lost a shoe and began surging to the surface, but her lungs were almost bursting and it seemed so far away. “I was seeing it, but I got it wrong. I thought it was you, but it was always me.” The dead thing in her nightmares was her, somehow. Knowing that, didn't it change anything?
“As to why I am here...” Now he sounded amused and on the verge of laughing again. “Let's call it settlement.”
“Fuck off,” she said, reacting before she could even stop to think, kicking out at him violently. Did he even have legs? Her feet seem to hit nothing but heavy cloth and she almost lost her balance. The arms he had wrapped around her were tight as a vice, keeping her forearms trapped in front of her chest, and she could not move them.
“These latter times,” he deliberated. “That my last earthly act should be such.” She couldn't tell if he was amused or disgusted. “My own lasting service began with a mere kiss. Yet still you are worth the wait, I assure you.”
It was such a strange, old-fashioned way of speaking, she couldn't tell if he was making fun of her. Wishing he'd shut up, she recalled something he'd said before. “W-what debt?”
Then somehow she knew. It was added to all the many different realities that were playing out at the same time. This was what they meant when they said your life flashed before your eyes at the moment of death. It wasn't a sequential run-through. It meant to be aware of all your life in the same moment, at once. It shouldn't be possible, but it was.
It was like a series of ripples over a pool, or the sparkling facets of a diamond. It was life distilled. It was amazing and beautiful and she'd been blind to it all her life. She could taste a rusk she'd been fed as a child, sweet and unlike any food she ate as an adult. Here she was learning to walk, to read. Laughing. Crying in the cemetery when her best friend died of childhood cancer. Every Christmas morning and every new year. Every Easter. Every birthday. Arguing with her Aunt as a teenager. Here, walking to work, there, unable to sleep, partying, drinking. Facedown in the water, all but dead. And amongst it all was one long ago day.
They saved him, the drowning boy. “Hey. Go over and get that thing to wrap him in.” And she ran to it, and she could feel the sheer joy of it – running as a child – she'd forgotten how unlimited the energy was, how fluidly the muscles worked. How easy.
“Oh...” It was partly understanding, and partly wonder at suddenly seeing everything she had missed, all at once. “It's because he didn't die.”
“You owe me more than one life,” he confirmed. “It is a debt you cannot hope to repay.”
There was something more than this. She'd drowned, that was true, and perhaps there was no way to save herself, yet her attention snapped to it as she was bodily hauled out of the canal by her shoulders. “Quick, lay her down! Is she even breathing?” Someone had found her. Two lads by the sound of it, but she couldn't quite place them. Perhaps if that version of her were actually conscious, she would recognise their faces. If she could only wake up and see!
She inhaled a sudden huge breath that made her chest expand, but it wasn't really her breath. One of the lads was doing it for her. Still, it made those arms loosen around her and she jabbed a hand up to get free, knocking the hood back by accident rather than design.
She and the spirit looked at each other. In the half light of the dreary day, it was like seeing colour television for the first time. Older than her, yet there was no hint of grey in his red hair. His beard too was dark auburn. But his eyes... She could not tell the colour of them. They gleamed with softly reflected light, as if he were watching a sunset, but the sun was hidden by clouds behind him, so that was impossible.
After the first breath, there was another. She was sure she could be saved. She was afraid she would never behold him again. Her heart beat was a heavy painful thudding in her chest, and someone somewhere counted out loud.
“One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand...”
“It is time,” he said, that mysterious light in his eyes almost burning. Time. Time for what? “Your indenture begins with a dream of your choosing.”
“Are you death?” she asked suddenly. He smirked.
“Hardly. And certainly not to you,” he said slowly, his fingers moving a tendril of hair from her face. “Not even if you were to wait on the shore for a hundred years,” he announced, as if somehow that was relevant. “I've waited so long. Too long.” She shook her head, not understanding him at all.
Something changed, and this she did understand. The light in his eyes faded to a glassy stare, and his skin became pallid and shiny wet. She struggled, but she wasn't prepared for the thing to throw her to the ground with such force. Winded, her heart still pounding painfully, she crawled forward, grazing her knees on stones, her chest making a horrible wheezing sound as that loud scream from earlier returned, echoing around them.
About to regain her feet, a hand clutched at her ankle. A cold hand. The stuff of nightmares, and she could do nothing as it dragged her back, her hands clutching at handfuls of dead grass that came away from the mud like bedraggled hair.
She kicked out with her free leg, connecting with something. Maybe it was his face, but it didn't change anything, and now there were two hands, gripping her legs, pulling her down over the mud. Back to him.
Now she screamed, desperately, lashing out in any way she could as she felt him push up her skirt from behind, pulling her closer and closer, his cold fingertips leaving bruises on her thighs. She was strong in her terror, but he was stronger. One of her fingernails was torn away as she tried to get some leverage and move forward.
Above all she could hear it – breathing – behind her. The air rattling in and out of its lungs. One of its hands left her upper thigh to grasp her underwear and tear it away. Almost as soon as she was uncovered it was in her. Plunging deep and fast. Cold, like the dream, so shocking, and she drew in a deep breath, shuddering, but again it wasn't her breath. Somewhere, the two lads were still trying to bring her back to the real world.
She screamed again, because it hurt, and because for all that her arms and legs flailed around, it did nothing to stop him. She couldn't reach him. Her screaming did nothing to stop him. Her body was tight with fear and refusal and that did nothing to stop him. That it should be this easy for him to hurt her, to rape her. That was the worst thing.
Until he laughed.
“One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand...”
The voice droned on, counting the space between her painful laboured heartbeats, counting every violent thrust forward that she couldn't stop, couldn't resist, so deep inside. Her body was a receptacle. How could she be anything else? She prayed the counting would stop, and eventually it did, when it was too late. When her body was bruised and yet had somehow opened up for him as if she was broken.
“She's so cold.” One of the rescuers was speaking, and she knew his voice. From a party a week ago, he'd tried to get off with her. From a day so many years ago, when she'd helped rescue him. Who else would have taken the time to learn how to save a drowning victim?
The penetration stopped without resolution, unless its aim was to merely to subdue her, and he turned her over, gentle now. The spirit had regained its former appearance, much to her relief.
“Am I dead?” she wondered out loud, not meaning for him to answer.
For the third time, there was a strident scream that cut through everything, through each reality. It was too loud to be eerie. It frightened her more than anything else, somehow. He looked around them as it rang out, and then died away.
In the quiet that followed, he answered, his eyes flashing with that same reflected light. “Almost,” he said, as if it were a promise.
Again her rescuer breathed into her and the spirit held her down, the black of the cloak on the ground around them, covering them like a blanket.
“They're going to save me,” she noted dully, even though it hardly seemed to matter now. He smiled, indulgent.
“Are they? Really?”
“This is a dream,” she said at last. “You're just a dream.”
The day seemed to darken. “Don't you understand anything, girl?” he hissed, and she cringed at his sudden change in temperament, feeling threatened by it. “Your servitude is my freedom. You are to take my place. I will finally pass over, as I was meant to.”
“Oh, stay...” she whispered, and heard the way her voice sounded, almost gurgling. Suddenly she recalled the very first dream she'd had. It really was her! She remembered then at last that she was drowning. She remembered that she'd been pulled out, that someone was trying to bring her back. All at once she understood the import of his words. She wondered if she looked dead to him, and a moment later she realised that everyone he saw looked dead to him.
“Hey! Go over and get that thing to wrap her in.” It might have sounded like an echo of that day years ago, but it wasn't. Before she could raise a thought of protest she felt the cloak covering her cold body on the canal bank, it's edge tucked tightly underneath her, trapping her in it like a shroud, sealing her fate, perhaps forever. No! All she'd needed was one more breath. They meant well...
She screamed until her breath was gone for good. It was the same scream that had been echoing over the canal since the beginning. Not human, not animal. Something else. Something other. In the end, Kathy never really did die, not completely.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I could tell you of the things I see. The dead that I guard, sealed in their own tombs beneath the waves, rags forced into vents so there is no flow of water, their bodies perfectly preserved for decades, floating, awaiting a release that never comes.
There are monsters of the deep that humanity has no living knowledge of. I know them each and every one. And I know their victims. I remember all, from the moment man first learned how to swim, how to make the simplest of rafts. They are memories that are passed down from one to the other of my servants. I never even knew his name that last one. Or perhaps I forgot it. Sometimes I forget myself. I am not Kathy. Just as she wears my shroud, so do I reside in her. She is my incarnation.
There are men, women and children who come to me now in such great numbers, their flimsy dinghies capsized on high seas. I take them in when the world won't. Shame on you all that my mercy outstrips yours. I have little enough of it. I make you all wait. Not one of you remembers how to pay me properly, and I am too busy to care.
None of those who wait can fulfil this task that is passed down through the ages, but I yearn all the same for another replacement.
I am the spirit of dark and lonely water. Ready to trap the unwary, the show off, the fool, the idiots who jump into fast-moving rivers to rescue pet dogs. No one ever expects to find me in the ordinary places, but I'm there nevertheless. I witness you driving through shallow flood water. I watch you swim on holiday, I observe your children when they paddle in pools in the garden. I see you bathe at night. I am by your side at all those times, just longing to snatch you away because I'm waiting for someone. It might well be you.

Author's Note: Comments are cherished and loved. I hope you enjoyed it.
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The Price