Five Times I Could Not Stop For Death, and Once He Kindly Stopped For Me
Written for the Stalked By Death and Five Times Challenges
Genre: Angst/Supernatural/Dark Humor; First Person POV; Five Times format (5 and 1)
Characters: Tim McGee, NCIS characters (past and present) and a few OCs
Rating: FR-15/T
Warnings: Canon character death
A sort-of sequel to another one of my stories in the last section.
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
~Emily Dickinson
Number One
The first time I almost died, I was only twelve.
I was on vacation with my family. My father always loved the sea, and even when he took a break from his job as a Navy Captain he still had to be near water. We were renting a house for a week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. A friend of my father had given him a good deal on the house, and we spent most of the week on the beach, searching for shells, building sand castles, and, in my father's case, surf fishing. Other than a rather nasty case of sunburn (it turned out I needed a higher SPF than 15), I was having a good time. There weren't too many other people around, and most of those that were staying in the neighboring houses were retirees, so I didn't have to worry about older kids bullying me. It was a true vacation in that regard.
My father had been working with me to improve my swimming skills. I had been taught the basics over the years, but he thought I needed more, particularly long distance swimming in open water. At this beach, there was a sandbar about 500 yards offshore, and in between the beach and the bar was a channel which ran between 6 and 30 feet in depth. My father instructed me to swim to the sandbar and back. He would be with me, but not close by, in case something went wrong. It did.
I started out fine. The wind was calm, the waves weren't too high, and the water was the perfect temperature; green flag conditions. The sea nettles that had plagued the area in recent years were mostly absent, and I had only seen one. No Man o' War had been sighted, and even the shark sightings were down. It should have been safe.
I made it to the sandbar without difficulty. After about a ten minute break, my father said it was time to head back. I was still tired, but I figured I'd get a good rest in once I made it back to shore, with the added bonus of my father's approval for completing the task.
About half way to shore, I encountered a rip current. I did what I had been taught and swam in the direction it was flowing, trying to find the end of it so I could head for shore. Unfortunately it was flowing away from my father and carried me further out to sea, away from safety. My father did make it to shore and I could hear him yelling instructions and encouragement. By the time I finally managed to get out of the current, I was much further out and I was exhausted. I tried to tread water but my legs started to cramp and, going against everything my father had taught me, I started to panic. I could barely keep my head above water, and the last thing I head as I went down was my mother's scream.
I've read many descriptions of dying, of the "icy grip of death" since then, but at the time, all I felt was a presence. It was hovering just over my shoulder and I thought that if I turned my head, I would see it, and it would be all over. I thought of my parents, of my little sister who needed me, and, oddly enough, that I was ruining my father's vacation. To this day, I still don't know how, I used my last reserves and managed to make it back to the surface. That first breath of air, salty taste and all, was the most wonderful thing I've ever felt. I took another, and finally I could hear someone swimming towards me. It was my father. When he reached me, I felt a strong arm wrap around my chest and heard a hoarse "hang on, son" repeated several as he pulled my through the water to shore. When we got there, a crowd had gathered, including the paramedics that had been called in. They checked me over and pronounced me "damn lucky", much to my mother's obviously relief. My father stood outside the group while I was fussed over, but once we made it back to the house he grabbed me and pulled me into the tightest hug I'd ever felt. He then looked me in the eye and said, "Tim, don't you ever do that to me again." I promised, hoping that I, too, would never again feel that horrible presence looking over my shoulder.
Unfortunately, just a few years later, I felt it again.
TBC…