The Rift by Seth C. Adams

Author:Seth C. Adams [Adams, Seth C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: other worlds; creepy stories; dark suspense; horror fiction
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2023-08-24T09:27:35+00:00

Chapter Eight

1.

After switching on the filtration system and dumping five gallons of liquid chlorine into the murky pool, Joe stepped aside to watch what happened. Far more chlorination than normal, he was hoping the shock treatment – usually reserved for such situations as algae growth or bacteria – would have some effect on the scum from the rift-freak’s bodily fluids. Seeing the brownish gloom of the pool water gradually swirl away to at least a semi-natural tone, Joe was a little more comfortable with leaving Clara behind, alone in the house, as his anchor.

Clara was a few feet away, hunched over the ruins of the patio table, a wastebasket at her side, picking up gummy shards of glass and depositing them into the plastic liner. As he watched, he saw her reach behind with one hand and massage her lower back, where she’d collided with the hard rim of the table.

Joe walked over to her, put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, tried a smile. Wetness glimmered jewel-like at the corners of her eyes.

Lifting gently but insistent, unrelenting, Joe brought her up to a standing position, spun her slowly around and led her inside. Rusty, curled in a corner of the dining room, watched their two-person procession with content curiosity.

Joe lowered Clara onto the living room sofa. The cushions accepted their burden with a relaxed billowy sigh.

She had a hand on his shoulder and the other on his face. Light fingertip touches brushed his cheek with a dancer’s graceful assurance. Clara’s eyes held his for a time. Joe smiled down at her, then turned her onto her stomach.

He rolled the hem of her blouse up inch by inch, revealing smooth skin marble-white in the dim light of the house. A blue-purple band of bruising striped her flesh across the lower back.

Joe stroked the bruise with his fingertips, barely making contact. Clara breathed in and out audibly with each touch, the drawn-out moans escaping from between the throw pillow her face was buried in, hitting notes somewhere between pleasure and pain.

They remained like that for a time, Saturday morning crawling along, replacing the deep-purple of the prior evening with a bright blue sky and a fire rising above the horizon in the east. As the sun revealed the Earth beneath its light, laying everything bare, so too did they lay each other bare, tentatively peeling off layers of clothes and dropping them to the floor.

Husband and wife held each other close and warm in the early hours.

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