The Resort by Bentley Little Page B

satisfying stretch of muscles in his arms and thighs and stomach.
    He was halfway across the pool when someone grabbed his left foot.
    Lowell kicked out, flailing wildly, shocked more than anything else, but the grip on his foot tightened, bony fingers digging into the thin flesh, holding firm. For a brief moment he was swimming in place like a cartoon character, then the hand let go and he floundered in the water as he fought against a force that was no longer there. Twisting, sputtering, trying to keep himself afloat and determine who had grabbed him at the same time, Lowell looked down into the bubbly choppy water beneath him, then scanned the surface of the pool. It was empty. There was still no one in the room but himself.
    Someone had grabbed his foot.
    He remembered that back in high school, Tony Sherman used to do that to him in P.E.
    But Tony Sherman had been killed in a drunk driving accident their senior year.
    Tony had been the drunk driver.
    A chill passed through him, making the water seem icicle cold. Even if he was superstitious—which he wasn’t—there could be no possible connection between what he thought he’d felt and a twenty-year-old accident. Still, the coldness remained, and he pulled himself out of the pool, hopping onto the side. He sat there for a few moments, feet dangling in the water, as he continued to search for his unseen assailant. It was clear, however, that he was the only one in the building, and he decided that he had simply overreacted to a perfectly logical, explainable, natural incident. There was no mystery here. no ghost
    His foot had probably just caught on the lane rope and his brain had misinterpreted what he’d felt.
    He forced himself to believe it and slid back into the water. Once again, everything seemed normal. He was in a pool in the resort’s Exercise Center, not in the basement of some haunted house. He took up where he’d left off, swimming to the shallow end. Pivoting at the wall, he headed back into the deep water.
    Fingers grabbed his right foot.
    They were weaker this time, as though they’d used up all of their strength with the first attack, but they still clutched the middle portion of his foot with clear purpose, and the assault was nonetheless shocking for its familiarity. He kicked out hard, trying to hurt whoever— whatever —was at the other end of those hands, but he connected with nothing save water. When he stopped swimming and spun around, the pool was empty. There was no one here except him.
    For the first time since he was a child, Lowell felt that deep primal fear of the boogeyman that had made his boyhood nights a living hell, a terror that he had never been able to make his parents understand. He gripped the edge of the pool and started pulling himself up.
    The hand was back, grabbing him, attempting to draw him into the deep water. Whatever was in the pool wasn’t strong enough to drag him down—but it clearly wanted to. The invisible fingers clutching his ankle were pulling at him, but they simply didn’t have the strength.
    He freed himself from the unseen grip and flopped onto the cement, trying to catch his breath. Reflections of light off the still rippling water shimmered on the wall and ceiling. Feeling he was still too close to the edge, he quickly stood and moved away from the pool, taking refuge on a bench against the wall, ready to run out of the room at the slightest sign of anything unusual. He was panting hard, not so much from the physical exertion as from fear.
    What the hell had just happened?
    He’d had a supernatural experience. There was no doubt about that. If he had formerly considered himself skeptical but open-minded when it came to the paranormal, he was now a firm believer. But what should he do about it? Should he rush back and tell Rachel? Let someone on the hotel staff know so they could . . . could . . . what? Hire a ghost-buster? Keep people away until the