The Darkness 2

The water was instantly upon his flesh, soaking straight through, and possibly ruining, his work trousers. He stroked his way competently towards the boat, ignoring the goosepumps and the feeling that the hairs of his own legs were ghostly fingers of weeds trying to pull him down. This sensation did nothing for his overall disdain for the situation, he was prided on his stoney heart, that's why he was the authority. Also why he was often summoned by the vet to train unruly pups. He smiled at the memory of the last one. A little crossed lab, black with the tiniest patches of white and it refused to stop growling. Turned out it was coz every time the owner's son got near it he'd do the exact same thing and the pup thought that was how you said hello.

Slick wood clunked faintly under his finger-tips as he reached the boat without even realising. The sheriff took hold of either side of the narrow boat and allowed his feet to float up underneath to grip the front so he could use its bouyancy to rest. The sky was starting to turn orange and he was worried that he'd swum so long he might not get back in time. Hopefully the activity would give him a little time as the wolves pondered the weakness of their prey before deciding he was weakened enough for the going to be easy. If he could get back to the gun though, maybe he could kill one and they'd run off, he wasn't an expert on the behaviour of a ravenous pack though and wouldn't stake his life on it.
"Best start back." The words sounded steady but they didn't travel far, a wind had started that was ever so gentle, but the boat was bucking enough to make him think it might take most of his strength to control it, which would leave little for shore reaching.

So back he started. The horses were whinnying and stomping in protest the disappearance of the sun's warmth. Making a horse walk backwards was time consuming anyway but a couple attached to a carriage! Stupid geology, foiled by a mere narrow path. The driver swore under his breath and began fussing in front of them, waving his arms and making loud noises. They huffed and swayed their heads for what seemed an age before, reluctantly, their hooves timidly found ground they couldn't see. The sheriff could stay in the castle, the driver couldn't stay in the wilderness so he felt justified even though he'd watched the mechanical path of the lawman across the water to a boat that was fighting to stay where it was and the boy was watching helplessly without so much as wisdom to protect him. But he couldn't stay, so he waved the horses back. Waved past their complaints and tantrums, his face alternately warm and moist and icy and frozen. He stared around the horses side, watching that back wheel for any sign of danger or turning room.

Always 'Ho-ing' and 'Ha-ing' at them because if they stopped they'd be unlikely to start again. Horses! Why had he decided horses were the way forward? They smelt, they ate almost all his profits and they're so stubborn. Posh donkeys, that's all they were, posh, stuck-up donkeys.
The wheel pitched. The scraping of hard dirt on a wooden wheel spooked the animals and thankfully they leapt forward, instead of falling back, and managed to drag the carriage back onto the path. The driver took a moment to pull his heart back into its proper place then looked to the right of the horses, there was probably room, they'd have to go on the hill some way but there was enough of a turning circle for the carriage.
"Come on horsies, hard bit's over. Let's go home."
The boat was being very unco-operative. A cramp had also tried to set in in the officer's right calf but he'd managed to stretch through it and was now left with a consistent yet dull knowledge of the muscles under his skin working away as he kicked around the keel. Water washed in and out of his rolled up trouser legs, which were beginning to unravel, cooling him as the sun went further and further behind the castle. His goosebumps returning with a vengence, pulling his skin uncomfortable tight over the hard-working muscles of his legs. He wished he'd been able to find a rope long enough to tie around his waist but sadly there was only a tattered foot of thick, damp cord. Barely enough to touch the water and too big to be held between the teeth. His fingers were beginning to freeze, having been holding onto the sides of the little rower for so long. They just needed to flex a little, break up the blood but the waves were pulling it and he knew that if he let go it would whisk away, probably taking his goose-fleshed legs with it. Water was always stronger than it seemed, water had will, water wanted to lull you into believing it's your friend but he wouldn't fall for it, no sir. So he kept pushing, the urgency he was surpressing was slowly breaking free but he didn't want to give in to it because that would only lead to panic and paniked swimming was thrashing uselessly until all energy is drained and the boy couldn't swim out and save him! Useless, what kind of parents don't throw their children into a pond when they're still small enough to float without a helping hand? The kind that can't do iit themselves.

He sighed and tilted his head back to see how far from the kid he was and saw the dust of their ride home rising up behind the grassy knoll that hid the village from sight. His eyes travelled the fringe of the copse nearby, searching for feral movement, but found none. Twilight was approaching though, and he was still a good distance from the boy. At this rate, another half an hour's swimming or so. If the wind picked up longer. Half an hour though wasn't that long. He was still feeling strong and he did want to just get to the bank so he let some of that urgency fuel his adreneline and he pumped his legs half as fast again. Maybe he'd manage to get back to the gun before his hands froze and operating it would be the dream of a dead man.

Tom was wandering listlessly on the sodden bank. The water was washing gently in and out beneath his feet. He thought it was strange how he could feel it pulling on his shoes when it moved so slowly and seemed to have such little substance. Of course his mind was too closed, having not reached the age at which the key of wisdom was granted, to think past what he could see to think that what he was feeling the pull of the moon's gravity. The moon was still hidden behind a pink puff of cloud, the reaction of the sun through the element rich atmosphere hitting and reflecting on the vapourised water buried somewherein his subconscious. Tom was an underestimated human being, he wasn't thought good for much, and he'd remain that way even as he isolated himself further and further into his basement bound experiments. They'd blame the fumes he created, shun him and his theories, only when he was dead would people remember they'd heard that idea from someone they knew years ago. Then they'd forget and poor Tom would rot, his bones glowing a little from the radiation poisoning that killed him. No Tom couldn't think outside of the box yet, but the sheriff would teach him and then it would only end when he was in a box.

He wanted to sit down but the grass was damp and it was cold. So he paced, aimlessly, glancing over the lake occasionally to see the snail-like progress of his mentor. He didn't seem far away but he didn't seem to be getting any closer either. Tom sighed and kicked a stone into the water. He watched the ripples warp as another tiny wave licked at his heels like a puppy. He shook his legs and more ripple patterns were flicked from the bottom of his shoes as droplets were fed back into the main body of the lake.
"Oh come on. I'm so bored." He whispered to himself putting his fists to either side of his head, spinning on the spot and thrusting them towards the sky in a violent stretch.

The colour was surely leaking from the clouds the sheriff thought. The entire face of them had journeyed brilliantly from yellow through to pink but now only the thinnest sliver of the bottom-most part was a dull browny-orange. His legs were starting to quiver with each kick and he wished again that the rope had been long enough to take in his mouth. His arms were shouting at him to be stretched, tensed or relaxed, anything! Just moved somehow. They were beginning to feel alien to him. More so than his quaking legs. At least he could feel their discomfort, his arms seemed to be holding on to the boat from somewhere above his knees. As if they were pushing it as he tried to swim away. The tedium was starting to get to the sheriff. A routine check on the whereabouts of the doctor had turned into an afternoon of swimming. Swimming was fine but long distance and with no one to talk to just began to leech away sanity after a few hours. He was tired, the night-time threat of beast's began to feel less important and his mind began to dully remind him that he was still quite a way from shore, not too farbut if he began to slip into that mind-numbed sense of non-caring he might as well be slap bang in the middle of it. He knew he was right but he still didn't much care to listen. Nothing seemed that important, not the dark shade of navy beginning to touch the horizon, not the lagging in his legs or the, attempted, loosening of his fingers or the drifting of his eyes.

Water was breathed and his lungs revolted with such force he head butted the boat. He let go, touched the heels of his curled hands to the bump. His face went under. He thrashed with both of his legs and caught hold of the rim of the boat.
He clung to the float and coughed the stagnant water onto the hull.
"Okay, I'm awake." He told himself and then heard Tom.
"Sir! Sir! Are you okay Sir? You're nearly here don't stop now!"
Now he was angry. The boy had seen him. The boy had watched him thrash against fear of drowning. That was unacceptable. Fresh energy warmed him, or maybe that was humiliation making him blush to his fingers and toes, and he kicked out to the shore with fresh determination.

He shook himself down, having surrendered the boat to the boy, and tried as best he could to wring the water out of his clothes. The damp would remain as the sun was all but gone now, as such the smell of the lake would linger. he holstered the gun, re-donned his shoes and shivered purposefully.
"Right boy, lets get in that boat. If we both take an oar we should get there in an hour or so." He stopped and considered the fact the boy couldn't swim, "you do know how to paddle a boat don't you?"
Tom's eyes crept shamedly to the ground.
He closed his eyes and sighed, "don't worry, I'll show you."

So ten minutes was wasted teaching the boy the correct technique and realising that after swimming for a whole afternoon, rowing a boat was too much for the sheriff's muscles to cope with. The boy learnt quickly though and the sheriff found he was more than willing to take both oars, not that he was told that it was because the sheriff couldn't, rather that with the boy being inexperienced their strokes wouldn't carry the same weight and they'd end up going around in circles. There was a sense of relief and disappointment as the sheriff saw the boat's trail touch the grass verge. Relief that the boy hadn't been set upon during his watch but disappointed that he hadn't been able to test the gun's effectiveness oh hear it's explosive crack.

Stars had begun to wink between the breaks in the clouds when the sheriff decided he was rested enough to take over. The boy's breathing had become steadily shallower since they'd left and he'd started to grunt when he pulled the oars. The sheriff's arms felt like his own again and he could move his fingers and feel the movement without the cold delay. They were almost at the castle now and the sheriff had noticed that there was no howling or barking from the woods but he had no space in his mind for thinking about that. It was late, he was tired, he still had to find the doctor and then sleep the night in the castle with only his damp clothes and no way of contacting his wife. Worst routine trip ever, he sighed and told the boy to hand over the oars.