Water In My Lungs

"Numerous drownings near the Shannon-Bridge plantation.  Closed earlier today for investigation."

"Local authorities advise townsfolk to wear a life jacket and avoid driving motor vehicles while intoxicated."

It started with tapping, like the wind against an outstretched tree limb, or the sound of rain hitting glass in a heavy storm.  That's exactly what she believed it to be; rain coming to turn the last of the snow to slush.  It was a thought that she dreaded: the nuisance of the weather unneeded in the wake of their upcoming road-trip to Shannon.

Just our luck, she thought, pulling the blanket snugly over her shoulders.  The tapping persisted through her half woken sleep.  In irritation, she wiped her hand through her bangs and across her forehead.  Instead of dozing back into a peaceful slumber, she began to worry.  She thought of the size of their Dodge Neon, which could barely make it up a sixty-degree incline, much less through a storm.

When the noise intensified, almost as if it might just shatter the glass from the window pane, she sat upright with a start.  The motion coincided with the screen door rattling like thunder from down the hall.  Her heartbeat flooded her ears and she sunk back in apprehension.

"Estelle," she whispered, her voice sounding lighter than she had initially hoped.  The rain must had already pulled her fair skinned companion into a daze.  Her response resembled a tired grunt.  "Estelle, I think I heard something."

Estelle rolled onto her side, eyelids fluttering to adjust to the light of Ireland's daybreak that had flooded though the curtains.

"Really, just now?" she questioned, sounding more timid than her friend had just the moment before.  They both subconsciously twisted their ankles together before eying the lightswitch on the other side of the room.  Connor sucked in a breath that whistled its way between her teeth and down her throat.

  "Gosh, I miss my dad..." she whined, freeing her legs from the soft, down comforter.

Estelle watched her cross the room with caution anxiously.  The small sound on the glass echoed throughout their rental apartment, almost as if it was amplified by Connor's proximity to the door.  The girl that remained on the bed heard the soft padding of footsteps up the tri-stair banister, and the quick return to the hallway floor. 

  

"We need to call someone," Connor declared, voice stiff with fear.  Her hands shook as she flipped her pillow to search for something.

"What? Why?" Estelle asked quickly, voice jerky with her lack of understanding. 

  

"Someone is out there," came the reply.

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, I'm not kidding.  Get me my cellphone."

"Are we going to call the cops?  If he's outside the house, isn't it a little late?"  Estelle's lowered voice was on the verge of a hiss, barely hiding her alarm.

Connor stretched her lips thin as she worried them between the front of her teeth.  The nearest station was in the city, nearly a thirty minute drive in conditions far more ideal than how they were now.  There had never been a high demand for a closer department in the year that they'd been there.  The area they lived in might as well have been a retirement community.  She ran her hands through her ashy hair, stringing it into a loose braid.