The Saltwater Marathon (A Novella) Read online

  Copyright © 2013-2015 by Jonathan Chateau

  All rights reserved

  Cover designs by Jonathan Chateau

  Cover images: Volare2004 © CrystalGraphics.com

  Inside cover images: Kotamatobi © Fotolia.com

  Cover font: Ray Larable / Typodermicfonts.com

  Edited by Serena Fisher

  This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Other works by Jonathan Chateau

  Energy Drink

  Faith Against the Wolves

  Video is Dead

  Thank you Serena, for always believing in me.

  And a huge thank you to my family for always supporting me.

  “As the ocean is never full of water, so is the heart never full of love.”

  - Unknown

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  FAITH AGAINST THE WOLVES (Sample)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  A note from the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  It’s been six months since her death and I still can’t figure out why I get this sense of peace every time I come here.

  Here…

  As in this beautiful shoreline along the beach.

  Here…

  As in the place my wife drowned.

  It all started with a kiss – a sweet kiss that tasted like agave nectar. A kiss which had opened the door to infidelity and ultimately Sirena’s suicide.

  It was not long after this betrayal that I drove my wife into the sea.

  She launched her coral blue Nissan right into the Atlantic.

  I should’ve seen that coming. The signs were there but I was too drunk, too egotistical, and too deep in lust to care.

  Lust with a capital ‘C.’

  Carmela.

  The moment I let her wrap her lips around mine, I knew I had made a mistake.

  She was hard to resist.

  Caramel skin. Big sugary dark Puerto Rican eyes. Chocolate brown hair.

  If Godiva made a woman, it would be her.

  There was not an inch on her body that wasn’t perfect. Not an inch I didn’t savor. Now the only lingering tastes on my tongue are wine and regret. Usually a combination of both. And no matter how many bottles I’ve killed in the half year since Sirena’s death, I still can’t seem to drown out my disgust with myself.

  Nor can I shake this weird sense of calm at the site of her watery grave. I feel it every time I come here. It’s a distinct stillness, an undeserved calm, a warmth within me. Yet this sensation doesn’t make sense since it was my fault she died.

  Sane people don’t find peace after being the cause of someone’s death.

  Perhaps Sirena hadn’t been the only one losing their mind.

  If only cheap sex could quell the pain of heartache. There was no love with Carmela. Only sexual opportunity. She came at the exact wrong time in my life. As the district manager for all of the GameGlobes in the Southeast, she was in charge of a territory stretching from Miami to Atlanta.

  She was also my boss.

  It was her responsibility to see that each store in her district was performing to corporate standards. When she visited my store, she checked on more than just the store’s performance.

  She’d normally show up late, right about when the mall was closing. We’d go over a few minutes’ worth of paperwork, then we’d drop the front gate, cut the lights, pound a bottle in the back office and tear each other’s clothes off. Trust me when I say she could go all night.

  Carmela had the stamina of a boxer.

  The betrayal started last fall. GameGlobe was holding its annual initiatives meeting at the Hard Rock Casino in Fort Lauderdale. Some forty employees were in attendance, comprised of general managers, assistant managers, and a handful of district managers – DMs as we call them in the industry. Carmela being one of them.

  Picture a conference room of professionals, gathered to discuss initiatives for the upcoming shopping holiday. The DMs taking turns, going over the usual rhetoric: gift card promotions, the slew of new Xboxes and PlayStations, the latest first-person shooter, blah, blah, blah.

  There’s really only so much talking about third-quarter earnings a guy can take before a goddess like Carmela comes in and lights up the room like a solar flare. The way she walks, the way she carries herself, it’s disarming. She exudes lust like a sexual EMP and any man caught within a fifty foot radius surrenders to her charms.

  As she stood up there, rattling on about gift cards, warranties and quarterly goals, those penetrating coffee brown eyes of hers locked with mine and I surrendered too. Something deep inside told me that night we would be focused on things other than boosting GameGlobe’s earnings.

  Three tequila shots later, we were making out just outside her hotel room. Tongue deep in that sweet agave nectar kiss that started it all. Once we slipped inside her room and raided her minibar, all bets were off.

  Along with our clothes.

  With just one drunken decision, I let my weaknesses overcome me. I opened Pandora’s box, got a taste of the forbidden fruit, ruined my marriage and inadvertently sent the only woman who ever truly loved me to an aquatic death.

  Go me.

  As I stand here, looking out into the Atlantic, at the very spot Sirena disappeared, I mentally punch myself for being such a fuck-up.

  When I first met her I had been vacationing in Siesta Key. It was late at night. I had just gone through a nasty breakup, so I was drinking – just like I always do when I feel the need to sulk – when I saw something on the shore. With only the moonlight to illuminate the beach, it was hard to tell what that something was.

  Turns out that something was Sirena, soaking wet and very unconscious.

  Surprisingly, I was able pull off administering CPR. My breath might have reeked of booze, but it saved her life. She coughed up a ton of saltwater, and then held onto me for dear life repeating you saved me, you saved me over and over. Apparently she and some friends were on a boat that capsized in the middle of the Gulf, and she miraculously swam all the way back to shore.

  How she did that is a mystery to this day.

  It was the stuff of movies.

  Not long after that we fell in love and got married.

  Not long after that I fell more in love with my job.

  Not long after that Sirena’s importance took a backseat to my career.

  I had put my work ahead of our relationship, distanced myself from her needs, and eventually drove her into a depression so deep, that it affected her physically, manifesting itself in the form of ichthyosis vulgaris and halitosis – she had patches of skin that looked like fish scales and breath that smelt like sun-ripened tuna. Weird, considering she never ate seafood.

  Neither of which helped to turn me on.

  And the worse those two conditions became, the less attracted I was to her, and the less she wanted to treat the problem.

  It was a spiral of death for our marriage.

  What really expedited things was her desire for us to have a kid.

  In our second year of marriage, Sirena begged me to get her pregnant, often reminding me that her biological clock was ticking – which I told her was stupid since she was in her twenties. Twenty-eight to be exact. At least that’s what she told me. That’s what her driver’s license said.

  But she promised she was older, like way older.

  She seemed convinced that she had to b
ear a child or her world would end. These particular conversations were overly emotional in my opinion, often ending with her locking herself in the bathroom for one of her marathon bathing sessions.

  Like hours in the tub. Like I could’ve watched Titanic twice, and she’d still be in there… bathing… brooding.

  Laundromats used less water than we did.

  When she’d finally allow me in, we’d spend the next hour talking about my career, rehashing her nagging desire for kids again, and her age issue.

  At the time I blew these conversations off as just another chick thing. Probably inspired by too many hours of watching bad daytime talk shows drone on about fertility timelines, aging, and early menopause. I couldn’t help but brush off the whole thing. I didn’t see the rush. I was more worried about her mental state.

  Rightly so.

  She did kill herself.

  Still, she was plenty convinced that her biological clock was on countdown mode, and one day, when I was finally fed up with the nonsense, I sat her down and told her to relax. I told her that I would give her a child…after my next promotion.

  “That’s not good enough,” she cried. “Don’t you understand, Bryan?”

  I didn’t because she was talking crazy.

  “If won’t you give me a child soon, I’ll have to leave you.”

  “Is that a threat?” I asked, but her response was more crying. More muffled you don’t understand, you just don’t understand.

  I didn’t.

  When she finally came up for air, she told me that she would have to go back home.

  “Home?” I asked with a laugh. “As in? What was that place called again–”

  “Pheia.”

  Pheia.

  I remember the first time she mentioned Pheia and I told her I’d never heard of it.

  “I know,” she said. “Most people haven’t.”

  When we married, her only true form of identification was a weathered birth certificate apparently from this mysterious island off the coast of Greece. The document looked like it had been through the washer several hundred times. Honestly, the Constitution had seen better days than this thing.

  Sirena had to go to great lengths to get it, since it was from another country and all. Bastards made her go to Greece to pick it up. She didn’t want me to come. Claimed her family was incredibly introverted and did not take to outsiders well.

  She left without me and came back a week later with her birth records and a shiny new Florida Driver’s license (since she lost everything at sea).

  It wasn’t until her increasing irrationality that I decided to do a little research into her mystical homeland, and that’s when I found out why no one’s ever heard of Pheia–

  Because it’s been underwater since the 6th century!

  When I confronted her about forging a phony birth certificate and making up a wild story about her heritage, she became irate. Not only had Sirena been slumping into a worsening depression, but it was obvious she really was losing her mind.

  Still, she stuck to her story. Said that’s where she was from and where she was going if I didn’t give her a child.

  As time went on, things worsened. She’d wake me up in the middle of the night, sweating and crying. When I asked her what the hell was wrong, she told me she was reverting.

  Reverting?

  To this day I still don’t know what the hell that meant, but I do remember her skin rashes had gotten worse and her breath more repulsive – which made Carmela all the more attractive to me.

  Not long before her death, Sirena went on about something else.

  She told me that me she had now given up all hope and that “the feeding was coming.” That they were coming. That they were going to wipe us all out.

  Reverting? The feeding? Pheia?

  Sure, I loved her, I was trying to be understanding, be the good husband (aside from my rampant adultery). But between her physical and mental issues, enough was enough. She was getting nutty and the crazy shit-talk was getting old.

  I told her that I was getting her professional help.

  That’s when she turned to me, stared me down with those stony blue eyes of hers, and said, “Why do you want to fix me, when I’m not broken?”

  Then she kissed me and it tasted like sardines.

  “You’re the one who’s broken, Bryan.” She ran a finger across my lips and said, “I hope she can save you the way I wanted to.”

  Somehow, Sirena had found out about Carmela.

  Maybe it was a classic case of lipstick on my collar. Perfume on my suit. Or maybe she just figured out that working late wasn’t all about working late.

  Somehow she found out, and that was the last time I saw Sirena alive.

  Her car was found just off the shore a few miles south of Fort Lauderdale. When they pulled her Nissan from the Atlantic, it was empty.

  Her body was never found.

  That was six months ago and I haven’t stop blaming myself since. My new monthly ritual has been to drive to that spot on the beach and throw flowers into the ocean.

  Her saltwater grave.

  Today, as I stare out into the ocean, I’m half tempted to join her. Everything that ever mattered before means shit to me now. I let the only woman who ever loved me fall apart and kill herself.

  Today, I’m holding a bouquet of Peruvian lilies. Turns out, they are a symbol of devotion. A symbol of trust in an everlasting bond.

  Turns out, they were also her favorite flower.

  Tonight I’ve got to work the overnight shift at the mall. Inventory. Then, after we close I’m going to drink – which is not different than any other night. Worst-case scenario I’ll fall asleep in the back office.

  I toss the bouquet into the ocean, blow her a kiss and turn back towards my car.

  And that’s when I hear Sirena’s voice in my head.

  I hear it every time I come here to pay my respects to her. This voice is usually preceded by a sharp pain to the temples, sometimes behind the eyeball or along the side of my head.

  Episodic migraines.

  Her death has manifested itself into vicious, mind-numbing, headaches with a message in the form of Sirena’s voice whispering phrases into my brain such as, I still love you.

  I still want you.

  I’ve reverted, but it’s all ok now.

  Reverted as in died. I get it.

  One time she even whispered something eerie. Something that made my skin crawl: Join me at the bottom.

  And she said it again.

  Join me at the bottom.

  Being able to hear her tells me that perhaps her insanity was contagious – which, if that’s the case, then I totally deserve it for all the pain I caused her.

  As much as I want to wallow and sulk in my own self-disgust, that sense of peace prevails. But this time that voice in my head says something different.

  This time Sirena says, tonight is the feeding.

  Tonight they come for everyone.

  The voice passes through my brain like a ghost, taking with it that sense of peace, and I’m left staring out at the darkening sky above Sirena’s watery home.

  The home I sent her to.

  There’s a liquor store on the way to the mall. I’ll need it to get me through tonight.

  Just as I do every night.

  Maybe it’ll drown out her voice.

  Maybe it’ll drown out my remorse.

  Maybe… but probably not.

  Chapter 2

  There’s the sound of someone knocking on the door.

  Is this a dream?

  The knocking intensifies to pounding. The doorframe rattles now.

  My eyes flutter open.

  “PLEASE! OPEN THE DOOR!”

  The first things to come into focus are my pair of beloved Nikes. Keep them hung above my desk. A constant reminder of the one thing I still have left that gives me pleasure in my life – running.

  Aside from drinking, running is my other coping mechanism.


  Something wet slides down my cheek, and I look down at my desk, where I’ve left a lake of saliva.

  “WE KNOW SOMEONE IS IN THERE!”

  I wipe away the drool, rub my eyes, try to shake off the grogginess. Feels like I chugged a pint of Nyquil. But it wasn’t Nyquil I drank; it was Merlot. My screensaver bounces around the screen – it’s the cover of a Prodigy album, Fat of the Land – my running soundtrack. My power music.

  If only life had a power song that could get you through the little hells of everyday. Get you through those bleak moments when you have about as much self-respect as a bucket of chum.

  The incessant knocking continues.

  Who the hell is that?

  I stand up, but being somewhat uncoordinated and still a little drunk, I inadvertently knock over a ceramic picture frame Sirena had given me on our first anniversary.

  It falls in slow motion –

  Then explodes like a ceramic grenade. I brush aside the pieces, sparing the photo inside from getting marred. It’s a picture of her and I. Our trip to Nassau. I had proposed to her on the beach in front of a group of German tourists who, after much applause, took us in as their own. Schooled us on drinking. Oktoberfest in July. We drank pilsners out of coconuts, made love in a sauna, and almost missed our cruise ship home.

  That was an awesome week.

  How did I get so far off track with her?

  What caused her to snap?

  Another barrage of knocking. The way they’re knocking, I’m wondering if it’s an ex-employee coming back for an old paycheck or a customer that’s having a mental breakdown over his PlayStation not working.

  Wait a minute.

  The store has been closed for hours.

  Who the hell could be knocking at this hour?

  This is what sucks about retail – the overnight shifts. Pushing around corporate initiatives before the next sales day. The CEO can dictate any little plan he wants at 5 p.m., but it’s lower level management chumps like me that are here until 5 a.m. executing those plans.

  I really need to change careers.

  Carmela would hate me.

  She already does.