Ghost Archer

The yacht’s bow was passing 40 meters by the time I reached it. Catching the limp girl I grabbed the straps of the life preserver and pulled. The nylon resisted but whatever it was hooked on surrendered and she was free. Pulling her tightly against my side, I kicked hard from the surface, aided by the buoyancy in the girl’s life jacket. Five seconds later, her head broke the surface. In two kicks and I reached the other two survivors.
“Spock, four to medical, now!” I ordered. ...

The cloud cover at 300 meters turned the usually azure water off the beach at Saint Tropez an ashy grey broken occasionally by tufts of white foam at the tops of windblown waves. At the end of a centuries old stone pier an immaculately maintained 1942 Chris-Craft runabout bobbed in the growing chop, the highly varnished mahogany of the hull protected by rubber bumpers as two men dressing in white pants and Navy blue jackets held it in place for three. The first, a man in his early fifties ...

Shay squatted behind the plate as the batter swung the bat back and forth before settling down to wait for Laurie’s pitch. Calling for an inside curve, Shay tapped two fingers against the inside of her thigh and brought the mitt up.
Someone in the bleachers screamed.
Coming out of her squat and tearing off her mask as if to crash down a foul ball, Shay stared up at the towering metal monster dropping to earth on top of her riding twin columns of fire. An arm looped around her waist and ...

Chrissie was the pretty one, Laurie was the athletic one, Shay was the . . . What exactly was she? In many ways, from kindergarten, from the moment she met Chrissie, Shay had been mostly background noise. A quiet, unobtrusive child, under normal circumstances she would have remained so all her life but around Chrissie that wasn’t allowed. The trio quickly became the center of attention everywhere they went. First as precocious children, then as budding tweens and finally as the dominate female clique ...

In the summer between 8th grade and 9th, Laurie, always the most athletic of the trio, conned her friends into joining the Rec League softball team. Both Laurie and Shay figured Chrissie would cop out after no more than two practices but she surprised them. Over the summer they had twelve games and won 8 allowing them to advance into the district finals. Though they were eliminated in two games, the trio had developed a passion for the sport. They had just started the new summer season just after ...