Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33409403-20180116110415

No one believes me, no one. Maybe I’ve lost my mind, maybe it was a dream, no that doesn’t make sense. It was too real. What happened on the night of July 2nd 1994 was real.



I was seven years old. I loved to swim but we couldn’t afford a swimming pool. Although our home didn’t have a one of its own it was only a few houses away from a community pool.



My mom would take me almost every other night that summer. I would swim for hours on end without ever getting bored. Every once in a while right before closing a maintenance guy with overalls, a dirty white shirt and a small nametag that read “Samuel” would seemingly appear out of nowhere to lock the doors and coax everyone out of the pool.



He had long gelled back hair which he had to have used a bottle of gel a day on, a long face with a large hairy mole on his left cheek and brown eyes so dark they almost looked black.



Every night as if on cue he would around the back of the restrooms and up to the front and watch us swim for a few minutes, his back slouched over and his beady black eyes following me. Occasionally he would look up at the clock. Then finally once it was 10:00 PM he would waltz up to the edge of the pool and with a crooked smile ask us to leave.



This was the only time he would smile. Every other second he had a pale almost dead expressionless face. I preferred this to his smile. When he smiled his whole face looked like it was about to tear apart, his lips quivering with happiness or simply the tension his contracting muscles created.



“It’s time to go,” my mom would say, walking towards the exit.



Then, right afterward, once my mother was out of earshot “Samuel” would lean in just a little bit closer to where his whole upper body was slanted over his legs and whisper a loud hissing whisper “Yes, Time to go”.



<p class="MsoNormal">I would run out of the pool my heart racing, the water clinging to my skin as the wind blew past me making me shiver. When I caught up with my mom and we would go home like every other day. He terrified me, but like I said, I loved to swim.

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<p class="MsoNormal">One night my mom wanted to leave early because she was tired. I, of course, wanted to stay till the pool closed. So I told her that I could walk home alone once it was 10:00. It took some convincing but she caved in. Thinking back on it she wasn’t the greatest mother, even if it was only a hundred something feet from my house. I was seven years old.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Me being the dumb kid I was wanted to stay as long as I could. Once the clock read 9:50 or so I went in the bathroom to hide. I wanted to stay past closing. Right before 10:00 Samuel came around the back and locked the door. There was a small crack through the stall where you could see through the bathroom to the outside. I could’ve sworn I saw him glance back at me a few times, but after locking the door he walked out of my sight. He left, I was free to swim for the whole night, and that’s what I was planning on.

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<p class="MsoNormal">I swam in the shallow side of the pool for a while, but I wanted to go to the deep end. My mom would have never let me swim farther than 5 feet without her. It was only about ten to twelve feet deep at the lowest, but for a seven-year-old that was the Marianas Trench. I started towards the end of the pool. My toes leaving the solid concrete below me. I didn’t panic I just kept going. There was no one there, so if I drowned, no one would save me. I had come to the edge. I started to test how long I could float. Two minutes maybe three I can’t remember.

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<p class="MsoNormal">There was one thing I hadn’t tried, diving. I knew how to dive, but what I really wanted to do was reach the bottom. The task took over my whole conscious. I would jump into the pool with all the force I had, again, and again. Hours went by and my legs were shaking, I should’ve gone home, God I should’ve gone home, but I was determined.

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<p class="MsoNormal">I walked back up to the side of the pool after resting for a bit. I had to reach the bottom. I readied myself to jump and then my feet left the ground as I pushed all the energy I had left into my legs. My body was an arrow, as my fingers pierced the water I knew, I knew I was going to reach the bottom.

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<p class="MsoNormal">My small frame flew through the water. My momentum stopped before I felt the dark, cold base of the pool. I reached my hand out slowly downward, knowing that I was close. What I felt was not the cool cement that my feet had felt so many times before. Thick stringy strands of something. Thinking impulsively I pulled on the strange fibrous substance. That’s when I heard something breathe. The sound was like a small whirlpool sucking in water.

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<p class="MsoNormal">When you’re underwater you can’t make out sounds, but you can still “feel” the noise. It’s like trying to listen to a conversation through a thick wall. You can hear the voices, but can’t make out what they’re saying. It was like this except the “conversation” was inches from my face.

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<p class="MsoNormal">My hand let free of whatever I had grabbed and I forced my eyes open, the chlorine filled water stinging them and blurring my vision.

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<p class="MsoNormal">There at the bottom of the pool, just lying there, was a body. I wanted to scream but maybe for not fully understanding what was happening or simply pure shock I just stared downward straight into its lifeless eyes. They seemed to stare back, black dead eyes.

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<p class="MsoNormal">That’s when his lips moved, the rest of the corpse entirely still. They spread across his face like cancer until they began to shake at the ends. His bright teeth illuminated in the bright light of the moon along with his dead black eyes.

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<p class="MsoNormal">I could feel my chest tightening screaming out for air. I turned my body upright and began to swim. The clear surface of the water just out of reach. My hands reached the top, then my head. I gasped for air with such force that a decent amount of water forced itself into my chest as well. After a few deep breathes I quickly swam to the edge of the pool pulling myself out, pure adrenaline rushing through my veins. I sat there breathing stressed breathes which forced me to cough because of the water in my lungs.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Most kids, no everyone would have run. I didn’t run I had to know if what I saw was real. Sitting there panting I quickly pushed my head under the water to where only it was submerged. I didn’t want to see him, but I did, his cold eyes moved to my very position. That was when I ran.

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<p class="MsoNormal">I arrived home at 4 A.M that night, with no recollection of running back. I woke my parents with my sobbing. I didn’t understand what I saw, to this day I don’t. My mom covered me with a warm towel and told me that it was just a bad dream. Water was dripping off of me, and I had my swim trunks on, how could that have been a dream?

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<p class="MsoNormal">She told me I had fallen asleep in the bathtub. I believed her, but all these years I had forgotten, I didn’t take a bath that night, I had come in the front door.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> <ac_metadata title="No Diving (Unreviewed)"> </ac_metadata>