Grains - by PM2K

[PM2K]

An old story I did sometime back...


Grains - by PM2K (2007)

The cool waters of the trout stream gurgle happily over her bare thighs as Becky sighs contentedly, letting loose another cast with her graphite rod. The summer afternoon is hot, but its blistering quality is muted by the shade offered by the thick branches of the trees, which stretch overhead.
Her straw hair hangs half way down her back, braided tightly in a tail, which she brushes aside as she adjusts her denim cutoffs, pulling them up a bit over her well rounded hips with a tug. A single gold ring glitters in her navel, her toned and narrow waist bare from the top of her shorts to the bottom of her breasts, neatly constrained within a matching blue denim bikini top.
Over this Becky wears a waist long sheer white shirt, which serves as protection for the sun. A black baseball cap completes the ensemble.
A gorgeous day, she thinks, slowly reeling in her line. The last day here, at this stream. Her stream. The very last day.

Late yesterday, Becky signed away the past with a flourish, a five million dollar deal with Rowan Developers, which would soon be turning this acreage into a luxury resort. This had been a day long in coming... Since the injunction had been quashed, all the rural community could do now is gnash its teeth in bitter silence and watch as their way of life is brutally stripped away from them. The resort was merely the first phase of a project which will in time quadruple the size of the community, turning it into a subdivision of cookie cutter homes and soulless boulevards.

Becky smiles to herself. Five million.... a smart girl could do a lot with that... but her smile fades when she realizes what she is giving up in return. On impulse, she kicks at the stream, sending a large shower of water droplets vaulting far ahead of her.
The stream runs right through the land, now peppered with survey stakes. She regrets that.... it is one of the few things she truly enjoyed about the farm... It served as a place to escape, to be alone and think clearly about the past, present and future.... especially the future...
"Becky..."
She turns, startled, the water splashing loudly in response to her movements. The voice had been soft, quiet, a whisper, one achingly familiar...
"No..." Becky gasps aloud, and tries to ignore the stiletto of ice stabbing deep within her midsection. The wind... it is just the wind... it had to be the wind...

"I won't do it! I won't!"
Charlotte shoves the contract across the dining room table, back towards Becky. Her older sister frowns.
"Oh, for God's sake.... grow up!" she shouts. "Keeping the farm is just a kid's dream! Once Dad died... It's over.... all over... Just get with the program, huh?"
"No.... no!" Charlotte snaps back, rising to her feet. Her brunette hair flops over her eyes, which she angrily brushes back. "This is my home! Our family's home! You have no right.... no right...."
"Look..." Becky sighs. "I love this place too, but we have to face reality... This place is going under... We should feel lucky that developer is offering us anything for this place, and five million is a lot.... we could have a new life.... start again...."
Charlotte bursts into tears.
"But I don't WANT another life! I want to keep this one! Don't you understand? I can't leave here.... ever!"
"Charlotte..." Becky starts, but is cut off by her sister's angry response.
"You don't give a fuck about this place! You never did! All you care about is you..."

"Becky...."
Becky turns again, shivering despite the heat. The stream keeps babbling cheerfully around her, but that quiet voice turns it to ice.
She shakes her head. Must be the heat. That's it. Becky turns away from the direction the voice (the wind.... it is the wind, dammit!) is coming from and concentrates on her fishing. Nothing biting yet, but a few more casts should provide...
"Becky..."
She freezes. Her heart pounds, her next breath trapped in her throat. Like trapped animals, Becky's blue eyes dart around panicked. They spy no one. And yet...
"Who's there?" she finds herself saying, a bit louder than she intended. No response, save the gentle rustling of leaves stirred by the breeze, and the happy sounds of the stream.
Giggling slightly at her foolishness, she relaxes.
"Becky..."
She drops her fishing rod, hearing it splash on impact with the water. The voice.... (the wind!) ... is clearer now. Still a whisper, but its clarity makes it seem as loud as a thunderclap.
Becky shudders, flesh chilled from the inside. A twinge of fear squeezes her heart with bony fingers...

The silo towers above the sisters as they scramble up its exterior ladder, a series of rusty metal hoops embedded in its concrete construction. Charlotte leads the way, with Becky close behind.
The central machine inside the structure has broken down, meaning no grain will flow from it unless it is repaired.
Clad in overalls, caps and safety boots, the pair reach the access door at the top and enter.
Inside, they stand on a small metal platform bolted to the side of the silo. Charlotte flips a switch, and the interior lights up, showing the huge green fan suspended above a wide circular pool of yellow grain. The platform is close to the main motor.
"All right," Charlotte says, taking charge as she always did in farming matters. "I think that damn wire has come loose again.... hang on..."
Becky frowns as she watches her sister reach outwards, stretching towards the machinery. She shakes her head angrily.
This place is falling apart, and still the stupid bitch clings to this fantasy.... Dad's death should have put an end to it once and for all....

It was pure chance she had first learned of the offer for the land, overhearing her father as he discussed it with one of the developer's agents. For a moment her heart leapt with joy at the hope it offered, of a life away from this endless drudgery of service to the farm.... but then Dad turned it down, and she quickly sank into despair and bitterness....
It had been ruled an accident, that day nearly a year ago when the tractor rolled forward to crush the life out of their father. Blue eyes drowning in tears, Becky had told investigators her foot had slipped off the brake while Dad worked to free a stubborn root snagged in its front end.
The police accepted it. Charlotte accepted it, for a while anyway. In time, so did Becky.

Now Charlotte has this stupid romantic idea of keeping the farm going as some sort of memorial to Dad, letting the five million and their best chance.... her best chance.... slip through their fingers. Watching her sister lean out over the grain, straining to touch the motor reminds Becky of her search for the brass ring, and how it has always been denied by others... first Dad, now...
On impulse, Becky takes two steps forward and slams into Charlotte, sending her younger sister hurtling off the platform. With a squeal of surprise the brunette lands atop the grain with a thud.
"Becky? What the..." Out of reflex, Charlotte rises to her feet, then gasps as she quickly settles to her hips in the loose flowing kernels. She feels her legs sliding rapidly downwards, much like an arrow, and in an eye blink she is chest deep.
"Oh, God.... Becky! Help me!" she shouts, settling ever deeper in the shifting grain.
Safe on the platform, Becky looks down, grimly fascinated by her sister's rapid decent. The grain forms a shallow crater around Charlotte, who is now up to her armpits and sinking fast. She reaches up with her arms, looking right into Becky's eyes.
"What the hell are you doing? Help me, for God's sake!" she says, the grain flowing over her shoulders. Staring intently at her sister's face, Charlotte is shocked to see the satisfied smirk sliding over Becky's face.
"You bitch...." she utters angrily, as the grain presses against her chin.
Becky stifles a giggle as Charlotte disappears beneath the grain with a choking cough, her arms waving briefly above the surface for a few brief moments after her head slips under. She watches the crater slowly smooth out, and is struck by how Charlotte's hands clench tightly at the tiny kernels before they vanish.
Soon all is still, except for her hat, which rests atop the pool of golden grain....

"Who are you? This isn't funny!"
Becky scans the woods lining the stream's banks, trying to keep her composure. No one is in sight, and the only sound she can detect is the friendly babble of water.
For the longest time, Becky stands still, her ears questing for anything out of sorts. She detects the sounds of the wind, her breathing, the trout stream... The feeling of its cool waters snap her out of her fugue.
It's this place, Becky thinks. Leaving here would be a relief, a blessing, a celebration. Even the stream is beginning to lose its charms, which she was happily wallowing in a mere hour ago.
A cloud passes overhead, hiding the sun and causing the air temperature to drop. Shivering, Becky looks up and starts as her gaze catches the faded green dome of the silo, nestled between a gap in the trees. Her memory dredges up sounds of a choked cry, images of a depression slowly filling in with grain...

"Becky...."
She spins around, her heart almost exploding on impact with her throat, and catches a glimpse of movement further downstream, where the creek bends around to the left, out of sight. She wasn't familiar with that stretch of the waterway... the fishing has always been better here, so she never went much further.
The movement she had caught out of the corner of her eye had been so swift, perhaps she imagined it.... but no. There! By those reeds.... a flash of color.... blue?.... something is ahead, flitting just barely in sight.
The fear which had been slowly creeping into her all afternoon now ignites into anger. Someone had been taunting her! Some jerk from town who didn't approve of the sale has been trying to scare her.... the fact it had been succeeding pisses her off.
'Hey, you bastard! Stop!" she shouts, and splashes off in pursuit. She keeps her eyes on the smear of color which remains maddeningly out of reach, darting among the tall grasses, reeds and low hanging branches which line the stream.
The water becomes shallower the further she goes, and soon it ranges from mid shin to ankle deep, enabling Becky to move more quickly through it. Yet still she is unable to close the gap...
Rounding the next bend in the creekbed, she spots her target, a flickering of motion and bluish tint, wrapped just beyond the trees on the opposite bank. It is as if it is trying to hide, but doing a poor job of it.
The stream is wider here, perhaps 15 feet or so, and really shallow, with almost a third of the stream bed taken up by a flat sand bank, which just barely clears the thin surface of the water.

Eyes fixed on her target, Becky splashes onto the sand bank, but only manages three strides from the shallows before the wet sand shivers under the impact of her feet and melts, plunging her thigh deep into its mass. Cursing, she looks down and stares in disbelief. Water oozes and bubbles in a thin ring around each of her mired limbs as she strains, trying to extract her legs, but the sand sucks hard on her bare skin, sealing her in place.

Struggling, Becky feels her feet slip deeper into the gritty muck, which wobbles in response to her movements. Swaying her hips from side to side, she watches the sand ripple thick waves which radiate out in all directions. She is astounded by the way the whole sand bank is moving, and suppresses a sharp gasp as her movements cause her to suddenly sink past her hips.
Becky's shorts balloon from the air trapped inside them, the fabric rapidly sopping up the water to plaster wetly against her skin. Twisting her form around, she looks in vain for something to grab onto - anything - to anchor herself to, and haul herself out of this sandy trap.
She begins to worry when the sand tightly surrounds her bare waist, lapping at her belly ring, yet her toes still cannot find anything solid beneath them.... just more loose wet sand.
Enjoying the show? she thinks to herself, aiming her ire at the trees. She couldn't see where the blue tinged figure is standing, but she can feel it... somewhere, just out of sight. Watching...

The sand shudders suddenly, and with a cry Becky feels herself slide deeper into it, the muck rolling quickly over her ribs to press underneath her breasts. A thought occurs to her - (quicksand) - but she suppresses it. Panicking now would only make things worse. Better to think of it as mud.
Feeling herself slowly sinking with every breath she takes, it is getting as hard to rationalize the situation as it is to breathe with the sand pressing in like a gritty wet corset. She calls out to the trees.
"Hey, you there! How about helping me?"
There is no response, and Becky admits to herself she would have been surprised if there had been. But the sand is insistent. Keeping still doesn't make any difference to the thick slurry swirling and shifting around her, and as it slowly laps over the tips of her breasts, filling the cleft between them, she finds it hard to stave off the icy fear wrapping its tendrils around her heart.

"Damn you!" Becky spits out, struggling to keep her arms from settling into the muck. It occurs to her she could drown out here - or is it suffocate? smother? The sand seems to have no end to it....
"Damn you! Help me! For God's sake..." she gasps. The slimy gritty silt oozes over the top of her cleavage, burying her denim top. She feels air bubbles roll and slide past her flesh, and shudders at the sensation.
The quicksand - and that is what it is, isn't it? - flows over the tops of her breasts to lap at her shoulders. Her arms are outstretched and half submerged in the grime in a vain attempt to keep herself afloat. She feels her braid tug gently at her hairline as it slithers behind her on top of the gently wobbling surface.
Becky struggles against the terror growing in her chest. She shivers as the cool sand flows over the top of her shoulders with a quiet gurgle. It is getting harder to keep her arms afloat.
"Please... someone help me..." she whimpers. The quicksand surrounds her neck, forming a thick collar on which her chin rests. Tilting her head slightly, Becky feels it licking her earlobes, even as her arms succumb to the bog and slip under. Frantically, her eyes scan the forest, looking for any hint of motion, any tinge of color, something... anything...

Suddenly, Becky's eye catches a flicker of movement, but she is unable to turn her head to see what it is. Sighing, she feels herself settle deeper, but moments before her ears fill with wet sand she hears something splashing in the stream behind her. Her heart leaps with hope. Someone is here!
"Thank God!" Becky says, sputtering through a mouthful of sand and water. She tips her head back further, feeling the muck surround her face. A long shadow falls over her, but she is unable to see what is casting it.
"Please.... hurry! I'm.... I'm going under..." she gasps. Then, something strikes her in the eye, causing it to blink. A thin trickle of some dry substance strikes her cheeks and nose, falling around her.
"What... what the hell are you doing?" Becky says, then she sees something yellow floating on the surface of the sandy mire. Her eyes widen in terror.
"Oh... God!" she manages to blurt out, then the sand shifts and she is drawn under, her final cries dissolve into gurgles as her mouth and nose are filled with shivering sand. Her eyes bulge before the rest of her face slides beneath a foam of filthy bubbles, her braid drawn under, thrashing like a water snake.
Becky's ball cap is lifted off by the quicksand, and bobs gently on the surface, which continues to quiver thickly in response to her last thrashings deep below. Swirling around atop the wet sand and bubbles of her final breath is a scattering of grain, golden against its gray surface....

[nachtjaeger]

Now THAT, friends, is what a quicksand story should be.

[water_bug_62208]

Oh, yes, I do remember this story, and it was certainly a good one! Many thanks for sharing it again!

[giuseppe]

That story is, to this day, one of my all time favorite QS stories ever. I really love the Charlotte is so quickly swallowed right up by the grain

[YerKiddin]

PM2K: You should do more stories. You're good at it!

[PM2K]

Thanks all for the kind words and comments! They are appreciated. Hoping to get more stories posted soon.