February Starter Sentence courtesy of Pat Clark

The young couple sat quietly, barely breathing and hidden in the darkness, as the three swimmers emerged from the bay.   The mid-summer moon was obscured by clouds and an evening fog brought a chill in the air as it progressed off of the bay toward the small California town of Sausalito, barely a mile from where Karen Kaplan and her boyfriend, Army Specialist Mike Wolters hid.

               Alarmed, Karen whispered “Mike.  Who are those men?”

               “Sshhh.  I don’t know,” he replied equally alarmed and quietly.

Waves washed over the rocky surface then receded, mingling with the rumbling of an occasional vehicle on the bridge above to create competing rhythms and across the bay, past the well-lit federal penitentiary on Alcatraz, the midnight lights of San Francisco twinkled in the distance.

               The men appeared to be exhausted as they crawled over the rocks at the water’s edge and after the last one made it out of the water, pulled out by the others, he turned, kneeled down and pulled a knife from his pocket and repeatedly stabbed a small brown raft to deflate it then tossed it back in the bay.

               Karen started to crawl out from under the blanket they shared until Mike put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.  “Where are you going?” he quietly asked as he turned toward her.

               “I’m going to get our clothes.  We need to get dressed.”

               “No.  They’ll see you.  We need to stay here under the blanket….quietly.”

               The three men all wore baggy grey slacks and shirts with black shoes and although they were cold and wet, they moved with strength and agility as they hastened over the slippery rocks and into the brush along the hillside.  About thirty yards from where Karen and Mike were hid under their blanket, the men settled behind a large boulder and removed their wet clothes.  Karen and Mike heard the men talking as they beat their wet clothes against the rocks but could not make out all that was said.  While not full sentences, they did manage to overhear a few terms like ‘hold up,’ ‘Need a car,’ and ‘Alaska.’

               “Shit! Karen, those men are convicts.  They must have escaped from Alcatraz,” whispered Mike as he looked over his shoulder, wide eyed at Karen.

               “Oh my god.  That’s impossible,” Karen slipped further under the blanket.

               They remained quietly under the blanket….watching.  Mike felt Karen shiver, whether from the cold of being naked or from fear he didn’t know, but he pulled her closer to him to share the warmth of their body heat.

               “Mike.  I want to get dressed….and I’m scared.”

               “I know.  I’m scared too but we can’t move or they will see us.  If they are convicts, I don’t want to have to face them.”

               The men remained for about thirty minutes.  They tore the identifying marks  off their shirts and trousers before they put their prison uniforms back on and scurried up the hill toward California State Route 1.  When the men were out of sight the couple hustled back to the secluded sandy beach area about twenty yards from where they had hid to where they had carelessly removed and tossed their clothes earlier. 

               As they nervously dressed Mike cautioned Karen, “You can’t tell anybody what we saw tonight.”

               “Huh?  Why?  If they’re escaped convicts we have to tell the police.”

               “Karen.  Think about this.  People will want to know what we were doing here.  You’re only seventeen and I’m nineteen.  I will get in trouble with the Army.  And, I’m supposed to ship out next week.  If we tell anybody that will all get changed.  Our whole plan for when I return in a year will be wrecked.  We need to keep this a secret, at least until you’re old enough.”

               Karen pulled on her blue mod shorts and while standing on one foot, slipped on one loafer then shifted to the other foot and thoughtfully replied, “Yea.  I guess you’re right.  We would both get in trouble wouldn’t we?”

               “Yes…we would,” replied Mike as he pulled on his Bermuda shorts.  “It’s better if we just stay out of it.  Agreed?  They’ll probably be caught in a day or two anyway.”

               Mike watched Karen as her face lit up with a mischievous smile and happy eyes.  He smiled back and asked, “What are you thinking?”

               She rose up on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips.  “This will be another of our little secrets.”

                Mike took Karen’s hand and helped her up the hill toward his parked Suzuki motorcycle.  Within a few minutes, they were scooting across the Golden Gate Bridge toward the Presidio where Mike was stationed and Karen lived with her Brigadier General father.