Cal offeredlittle resistance as his blood levelsbecamedepletedand thenhis breathing became shallow due toa lack of oxygen. Hislimitunder thewaterwas threeor four minutes,which was fairlydecent fora mammal, but not good enough for a mammaltrappedin the ocean depths.
I liftedthe moremassiverocks oneafterthe other andplaced them strategically to trap Cal for as long as the rocks stayed in place. And, inthis case, thatwould be15 years– thefirst two ofwhich Sharonchecked onher flame regularly, althoughthe visitsbecamemore sporadic over time.
There were manyoccasions, especially in thevery beginning,when Sharon felt theurgeto bash allof thoserocks awayandfree Cal sothey couldbetogether.But her urgeto be with Calwas overridden by hereternaloath to protect me at all costs.
Our lives were definitely enriched via Cal’s absence, but Sharon, Thad, and Emily hada muchdifferentexperience. Belinda grievedat the lossof herhusband, eventhoughtheir relationshiphad thinned over the years. Daniel alwayswonderedwhat his dad was like, butneverreally missed someonehe barely knew. After all, I had been his father-figure in theprevious life and this life's formative years.
HAVEN
Somewhere in between Cal'sunderwater burial and the kid's 18th birthday, was a period ofexploration and confusion. It started off rather innocently with metaking my new charges to school on a regular basis. Cal and Emilywere so eager to learn that a five-year losing streak did little todamper their enthusiasm. It was during the middle of that periodthat Sharon became enamored with me and we had a little dalliance,a brief affair, which actually - when I think about it - made Calnotice her even more and drove him to heightened obsession withovercome me as an adversary, both physically andmentally.
There were a bunch of years whenwe were losing on a regular basis that I decided to take off andclear my head. Well, that would have been an oversimplification ofwhat was actually happening. I could tell there was cosmic energyin the air that would lead to better days for me. And, as we allknew, this is all about me anyway...
We had taken an initial break tolet Thad and Gary start families, and this secondary break was tofurther build the family through Sharon, Cal and Emily. Sharonpared up with her lifeguard partner, Agent Blake Wallace, whichproduced Nicole who turned out to be my son's protector and futurewife. Blake and Sharon never got married because she didn't tellhim she was pregnant. He found out years later when he was agovernment official who became obsessed with us and then eventuallyjoined the fold.
Emily married a nobody named RandyPrince, who she dispatched just after Andrew was born. But, it wasCalvin Brewster's relationship with Belinda Thompson that reallywas the shocker. Apparently, there had to be a conduit in thisworld that had the concentration of energy to match mine, in orderto provide a window for my son. I have to admit that it was a caseof extreme mixed emotions when I realized that my Nathaniel, nowDaniel, was my fiercest rivals' son. There was no way there wasroom for the two of us in his life! At least, that's what I thoughtat the time.
My plan to bury Calvin Brewster atthe bottom of the ocean had everything to do with the battle of thedads, and much less with the fact that he was cheating on his loyalwife Belinda with Sharon. And, there was also the issue of himbecoming almost impossible to kill with his sister in tandem. I'mnot going to say that I pushed Sharon toward Cal to distract him,and I'm also not going to say that I didn't. It was a case of usingevery tool that I had in my toolbox to disrupt the flow of energythat was surely going to lead to my 100th death before I had achance to bond with my son.
Once Cal disappeared, it destroyedboth Emily and Belinda, who moved away after it became apparentthat he wan't coming back. It was a few years later, when Danielwas going into first grade, that Belinda moved to Beach Haven, NewYork for reasons that she couldn't fully explain. The truth wasthat I really liked the sleepy East Coast town and thought it wouldbe a suitable place for the kids to grow up. Really, a suitableplace for me to reunite with my son and then wait for my wife, hismother, to come to us.
Cal remained buried on the bottomof the ocean for 15 years while I became reacquainted with my son.He didn't know at the time that I had such a big stake in the game,but he managed to maintain a genuine hatred of me when finally setfree from captivity.
Hours afterDrew continually blasted the rock formationwith his concrete head, Cal finally becamedislodgedand beganthe slow float from the depths to the ocean's surface.
Lucky for Cal, itwas hightide – instead of floating out to sea, the current movedhim steadily toward the shore.Hours passed as his water-loggedbody madethearduousjourneytowardland.He finally washed up on the beach at 3:00 a.m. on Monday morning, buthad justabout asmuch life as a broken treelimb.
If Cal had washed ashore during thehours of 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., his body certainlywould havebeendiscovered by a passing joggeror a youngcouplelookingfor privacy at night.
Cal was onhis back for the better partof two hours, lying motionless and without a heartbeat. Speaking of the sun, it started rising out of the east and its rays slowly worked its way down the Beach Haven shore. The lightpassed by Cal’s body and steadily shot shiny crystals fromhis head to his toes. The healing process tookabout 30seconds, withwatertrickling outof his poursand thelast few quarts ofliquid making its way upward as hisheartstartedpumpingagain.
Cal coughed, as water shotfromhis mouthand sprayed allaroundhim.He rolled over on his side in pain, as his body felt like ithad been hit by a Mack truck. Hecontinued rolling to his knees, as water streamed out of his mouth. Cal coughed repeatedly and tried to gethis bearings as he sat on his butt, pained by the bright glow of the rising sun.
Yearsin thedarkdepthsof theocean hadgiven way to theintensebrightnessof the newday. At first he had no idea who he
