“Coast guard and ambulance,” she shouted breathlessly into her phone. As she gave their location and situation details, she cast a look over at Gemma, who had collapsed to her knees, her hands clasped over her mouth. Maeve stood frozen, her face a grim reflection of Annie’s own feelings. Annie looked back out over the water. John was still swimming hard, the water swallowing him one minute and then spitting him back into view the next. The fear was almost paralyzing; she was breathing so hard she felt dizzy.
“He’s reached him!” yelled Maeve.
Gemma began to stand shakily. Annie felt hope leap through her; if they could just make it back to the rocks and hang on till the coast guard arrived, everything might be okay. She could hear snatches of Maeve’s conversation on the phone with Sally.
“Seen him, yes, in the sea, struggling. Wait by the pub and let the ambulance follow you down. No sign of them yet, weather’s bad, though.”
Out on the water, the two men were tossed back and forth by the waves like they were partners in some horrifying danse macabre. Annie could see that John had one arm wrapped around Alfred, but it seemed impossible that he would have enough power in his free arm to swim them both to the relative safety of the rocks. And if they got too close without securing themselves, they would just as likely be dashed by the rocks as saved by them. Annie couldn’t bear to watch, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away either.
“They’re going to make it!” cried Gemma.
The waves had taken a blessed break from crashing over their heads, and John took full advantage. He surged forward toward the rocks through the roiling water. Annie could feel herself breathing for him, her limbs twitching in sympathy. She couldn’t feel the rain or the cold anymore; she was outside herself, willing and pulsing every ounce of her energy toward John, pushing him forward, hoping beyond hope that she would get the chance to tell him how she felt about him.
“Sweet Jesus, have mercy on them!” came Maeve’s strangled cry.
Annie followed Maeve’s horrified gaze out past the struggling men, to where a wave was steadily and stealthily building in height and girth. The air whooshed out of her lungs. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing anyone could do but watch the horror slowly unfolding before them. The wave began to pick up speed, growing still higher as it slid toward the struggling men.
“Swim!” Annie screamed. “Swim faster!”
Gemma began to sob. Maeve’s face was frozen in angst.
John looked up as the wave towered over them, a great foaming mouth of water, and then its jaws snapped shut, swallowing them whole, and they were gone.
It didn’t seem real; it couldn’t be.
Annie felt trapped in a nightmare, a horrifying, gut-wrenching nightmare, but she was awake. She felt emptied, as though the waves had dragged her insides out to sea too.
Chapter 81
All three women were drenched as the water gushed furiously past where they stood, transfixed, their breaths held as they desperately clung to their hopes. The seconds ticked by, but neither John’s nor Alfred’s head broke the dark surface of the water. Maeve began waving and pointing, and Annie was vaguely aware of the orange helm of a lifeboat bouncing across the waves from the other direction. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the water; she swung her torch uselessly this way and that, hoping to catch sight of a hand or head. She reasoned that the wave could have sent them off course, it could even have propelled them forward toward the shore. The boat slowed as it reached the peninsula and powerful flashlights began sweeping the sea. Annie followed the streams of light on the water. But water was all they illuminated; miles and miles of water and no sign of John or Alfred.
Annie could hear someone crying quietly, and it took her a moment to realize it was her. She began to shiver then, the full force of the cold coming home to her. Her sodden clothes hung heavily; her feet, swimming in cold seawater inside her boots, didn’t feel like they belonged to her at all. Tears stung her windburned cheeks and her nose was running. She fumbled in her pocket and found a damp tissue, blowing her nose with fingers so stiff with cold they could barely obey her commands.
Across the way, Gemma was sobbing uncontrollably into Maeve’s shoulder; Maeve held her tightly and though she made soothing noises, her face was grim, staring out to sea. Annie shook herself mentally. She wouldn’t believe they had drowned. She wouldn’t. Until the lifeboat found a body, there was hope.
The sound of a car engine behind her dragged her from her thoughts. She turned to see Sally leading an ambulance slowly along the shingle toward Saltwater Nook. As Annie made to climb back up the beach to tell her the news, something bumped against her shin. Annie looked down to see that Alfred’s rucksack had washed up beside her. For a moment, she almost lost her composure. The pressure of not letting herself give in to the grief hammered inside her head.