Beneath the Lake

by Dee Garretson

BENEATH THE LAKE

  by Dee Garretson

  A short, old-fashioned ghost story for reading or telling around the campfire

  Sally Cooper thought the lake was picture postcard perfect, something a city girl like her had only imagined. She didn’t know the lake held secrets beneath that quiet water, secrets needing to come to the surface. The past doesn’t stay buried.

  Copyright 2013 Dee Garretson

  Beneath the Lake

  Lakes have histories, but sometimes, because the history is hidden in the deep, people forget.

  There used to be a small resort, next cove over from our cabin, called Cuffin Beach. It was one of dozens of old-fashioned resorts around the lake, small family-run places that were popular after the war and during the fifties and sixties, where you could bring a family to stay for a week without spending too much money. The children could wear themselves out swimming all day, and there was some good fishing for those who were inclined, and for those who weren’t, there were lawn chairs in the shade for sitting and dozing and gossiping. Cuffin Beach Cove had a quietness about it, even on a lake known for quiet. It wasn’t any more isolated than any other cove, but casual boaters never seemed to find it, and experienced fishermen passed it by.

  The resort was on the small side, as those sorts of resorts went. It only had eight cabins scattered on the hill up from the cove. Like other places around the lake, there was a shuffleboard area and a horseshoe pit, and for the younger children, a rope swing and a sand box to play in. Later on, there was a dock where people could drive their boats up to get gas and a little store right there that sold candy bars and cold sodas and popsicles. An old lady worked the cash register in that store. I remember her because she always wore a hat, an old-fashioned white bonnet that was out of place with the rest of her clothes. You’d think there was no need for a bonnet, because inside that store it was dim all day, but she was never without it. She didn’t talk, or at least I never heard her speak, but she’d smile and give you your change and nod to tell you to leave. No one I knew ever commented on the bonnet. It was one of those eccentricities some folks took on, and to be polite, you pretended not to notice.

  But when this story happened, the store wasn’t there yet. The place was owned by a couple named Graber, Craig and Loretta. They’d bought the resort with some money Mrs. Graber inherited, because Mr. Graber loved to fish, and any job that gave him the opportunity to fish when he liked was a dream come true. The man who sold them the place said he was moving to the desert where he wouldn’t have to look at water any more. He’d had enough of it and had given them a good deal so he could get away. The Grabers were just happy he was willing to sell.

  In about 1954, a cousin of Mrs. Graber’s came to stay with them, a girl named Sally Cooper. She was sixteen, though she looked and acted older, mainly on account of being the oldest of six children and having the responsibility of helping take care of them. She was mostly ordinary looking, the kind of girl you wouldn’t notice in a crowd, though she did have a ready smile and nice pretty blond hair that waved on its own.

  It had been a bad year for Sally’s family. Her mother had died in March and her father had lost his job. He’d gone off to look for work off in California after making arrangements for relatives to keep the various children until he could get settled and send for them. Sally didn’t tell the younger ones she wasn’t sure they’d ever be sent for, but she was pretty sure life was never going to be back to the way it was for the family. At least since she was the oldest, she was the one who had gotten the chance to come to the lake. Her cousins had agreed to take her because she was old enough to help out around the place, and she didn’t mind cleaning cabins in exchange for getting to live at a lake. Best of all, she was the one who got to bring the family dog. He was a little gray dog named Lucky, some kind of mutt terrier mix. No other relatives had been willing to take both a child and a dog, so all the children had been relieved to hear he’d have a home too.

  Sally had never been to the lake before, and she was happy to see how it looked just like a picture postcard, all green trees and hills and lake water that shimmered in the sun. The summer season was only a few weeks away, so it was decided Sally didn’t have to register for school until the fall. Fall would come soon enough. Sally knew she’d be lonely, but she was resigned to knowing she didn’t get to choose how life went for her. There had been a boy back in Chicago who might have turned into a sweetheart if they’d had a little more time, and she regretted that, though she was hopeful there might be another boy someday soon for her.

  She was amazed to find she got her own little cabin to live in. The Grabers lived in a small house right on the place not much larger than the biggest cabin, and they had Mr. Graber’s bedridden elderly mother living with them at that point. She slept in the only bedroom in their house. They slept on a pullout sofa in the living room, so there was no room for Sally, which was actually fine with her.

  When Sally asked if they didn’t need the cabin for guests, Cousin Loretta told her they didn’t use that particular cabin much. It had the best view of the lake, being at the very end of the property and looking right out on the water, but people didn’t seem to care for it for some reason. They complained of the damp and the chill in the place. Sally thought it was perfect though. It had a bed that faced the lake and a couple of braided rugs that were a bit faded, but still cheerful-looking, and a painting of some ducks. There was a rocking chair she could sit in and look out over the water if she wanted. It was only the one room with a bathroom, but at home in their apartment in Chicago, she’d had to share a smaller room with two of her sisters, and there had been only one bathroom for the whole family.

  Lucky didn’t like the cabin at all. He really didn’t like any part of the resort, and Sally thought it was because he was such a city dog. She’d hoped he’d take to the water and all the room to roam, but he stuck close to her, except when he’d get it in his head to go bark at the lake. It would have been a funny sight to see except the Grabers got mad at all the noise he made down by the shore every evening, just barking, barking at the water. He didn’t bark at ducks or anything else, just that water.

  He never wanted to go into Sally’s cabin at night, and she’d end up having to pick him up and carry him in. He’d scratch at the door to get out, but when she wouldn’t let him out and yelled at him for marking up the door with his toenails, he’d lay down on the rug right in front of the door and that’s where he’d stay all night. When she’d wake up at night, she’d see him there. He’d never be sleeping. He’d just be lying there, his head up like he was listening for something. During the day he’d follow her around as she did the chores her aunt gave her, flopping down wherever he could for a few minutes to sleep, like he was resting up to be able to stay awake at night.

  Sally kept busy that first week, scrubbing down each cabin. The Grabers were hopeful they’d finally get some more guests that year. The resort wasn’t thriving like should have. Back then those little cabin resorts were really popular, but for some reason people came once to Cuffin Beach and then didn’t come back year after year like they did to the other resorts.

  By the end of each day, Sally found herself so tired, she was happy to go to bed. She did notice the cabin was cold like people said, even though the weather was nice and mild. She just figured it was because the cabin was in the shade all day and didn’t take up any warmth from the sun. The lake made her more nervous than she expected. She didn’t know how to swim, but the Grabers had promised to teach her when the water warmed up some. It bothered Sally a little to think of just how deep the lake was, and how she couldn’t see to the bottom.

  One night after Sally had been there about a week, there was a sudden bad storm late in the eveni
ng. More thunder and lightning and rain than she’d ever seen. Sally was already in her cabin and the storm made her a little nervous. She sat in the rocking chair watching the lighting over the lake, telling herself there was nothing to fear. For once, Lucky wasn’t at his place by the door. He was cowering under the bed, and no matter how much she tried to coax him out, he wouldn’t come. She left him there, calling him a big baby, and went back to the watch the lake. She should have been tired, but for some reason she felt compelled to sit in that rocking chair looking out over the water.

  Finally, the clouds cleared away and the moon came out. It was nearly a full moon and Sally couldn’t believe how pretty the water looked with the moonlight shining on it. There were ripples out in the lake and she wondered why they were there, not sure if fish swimming around could do such a thing. She planned to ask Mr. Graber about it the next day. She watched the water for a long time until she felt herself getting sleepy, not really thinking about much of anything. When she was just about ready to get up and go to bed, she happened to notice something out over the water, a mist rising up from the lake, a lot of mist, but just over one spot. It got thicker and thicker, as if a fog was settling in. The air coming through the screens grew colder. Sally decided she didn’t want to look at the water any longer.

  As she went to close the shutters, she saw the mist looked different, like it was moving, but the wind wasn’t blowing. The air had grown very still and quiet. Long tendrils of mist began to rise up higher in the air. The tendrils began swaying back and forth, only a few at first and then more and more. Sally thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. She could have sworn they looked like arms, like there were people out there trying to get out of the water.

  Sally felt goosebumps all over, and the cold in the room turned downright freezing. She thought about going over to her cousins’ house, but somehow the idea of going outside scared her. Instead, she slammed the shutters shut and jumped into bed, pulling the covers up tight, humming to herself. Lucky was still under the bed and when he began to whimper, she leaned over to try to coax him out. He started to growl. Sally looked over at the door and was glad to see she had remembered to latch it shut, though she told herself she was being silly for being scared. She turned her head to look at the window and saw something she couldn’t believe. Mist was coming through the shutters, long thin strands of it like fingers reaching for her. She sat up in bed watching them coming closer and closer to her, too scared to move, too scared to even scream. One shaped itself into a man, an emaciated young man reaching out to her, his features twisted in agony. The others formed into people she could see, all of them caught in some sort of terrible pain. Lucky stopped growling when the mists reached the bed.

  The next morning was a beautiful day, sunny and bright, and Mrs. Graber couldn’t understand why Sally had missed breakfast. About 8:30, Mrs. Graber went over to check on the girl, but couldn’t get in because the door to the cabin was latched. She pounded on it and called out Sally’s name, but Sally didn’t answer. It was completely silent inside that cabin. Finally, Mrs. Graber went to get Mr. Graber, and he came over and pounded on the door too. Mrs. Graber was afraid the girl had taken sick in the night and was too weak to get out of bed, or even call out for help. When Mr. Graber didn’t get any answer either, she insisted he go get his tools to take off one of the screens so he could climb in the window.

  He did, and pushed on the shutters to open them. As he climbed in, he called out to Mrs. Graber that Sally was in there all right, sitting up in bed. A few seconds later he nearly fell back out the window, babbling something about hair and something being wrong. Mrs. Graber looked in and saw the girl there. Sally was pointing toward the lake, opening and closing her mouth, but no sound was coming from it. That wasn’t what had startled Mr. Graber though and made Mrs. Graber shriek. All of Sally’s hair had fallen out, that pretty blond hair, and it was lying around her on the bed. The girl was completely bald.

  Not only was she bald, but she was soaking wet too, as was the bed, like both had been dipped in the lake. Lucky was there too. He was drenched, his coat all dripping with water. At first Mrs. Graber thought he was dead, he was so still, but when they got in the cabin and turned on the light, they could see he was still breathing. He lay across Sally’s lap like he was exhausted, barely able to open his eyes.

  Mrs. Graber took Sally by the shoulder and shook her. No matter how many questions the Grabers asked Sally, trying to find out what had happened, the girl wouldn’t speak. She just kept pointing at the water.

  Mr. Graber went down to see, wanting to get out of that cabin and away from the girl. He found something he couldn’t explain. Scattered about on the little rocky beach was a dozen or more old, old gravestones, so worn he couldn’t make out the names or the dates on them. They were all wet too, like they’d been dragged out of the lake. Mrs. Graber came down to look too.

  They didn’t know what to do with the girl. They were just astounded by it all. Finally, Mrs. Graber decided they had to take Sally to a doctor before they did anything else, so they bundled the girl in the car and drove to town. Sally didn’t say a word the whole way there, nor did she speak to the doctor. He examined her and shook his head and said something about hysterical girls and gave her shot, telling the Grabers to take the girl home and put her to bed to see if she felt better the next day. He said the hair falling out was likely due to something the girl had put on it herself. Foolish girls were always dousing their hair with who knows what to make it blonder or thicker or some such nonsense, and Sally would just have to wait until it grew back. The Grabers were still kind of in shock and didn’t question him. He was a gruff old man, who’d probably seen everything, and back then, people didn’t usually question doctors.

  Mr. Graber took Sally and Mrs. Graber home and then went back into town, needing to talk to somebody. He went to the sheriff, figuring someone official needed to come deal with those gravestones. He didn’t even want to touch them, feeling somehow it would be wrong for an ordinary person like himself to move them, but he didn’t want them to stay where they were, because nothing would be worse for business than gravestones on the beach.

  The sheriff listened to his story, frowning when Mr. Graber told him about Sally, and again when he described the gravestones. The man agreed to come out and take a look. When the sheriff got to the resort, he walked around, kneeling down to look at each gravestone. Finally, he stood up and said he’d be darned to know how they came up out of the water all together after all this time. Mr. Graber asked what he meant, and the sheriff told him he’d heard there’d been an old cemetery out toward the middle of the lake, one rumored to be filled with typhoid victims. When they built the dam to make the lake, they’d moved most of the cemeteries, but the one off the Graber’s place had been so old, all records of who was actually buried there had been lost, and no one came forward to insist on any remains being moved. It had been left where it was and the water had come in, filling up the valley where it stood, giving those graves what you might call a second burial, this time with water.

  A few years after the lake was filled, a story went around that pieces of old coffins had washed up, and people took to calling the cove Coffin Beach. Young people would dare each other to camp there at night, and those who were brave enough, or foolhardy enough, would talk about the ghost mist rising out of the water. When the owner of the land decided he wanted to sell it, he thought he’d never get a buyer with such a name. He told the man who’d bought the land and built the original cabins, that the name was Cuffin Beach, and once the man put up a sign calling his cabins the Cuffin Beach Resort, most people gradually forgot about the old name. The war came and went, and the teenagers who’d once camped there were either buried in the fields in Europe or had become respectable adults who didn’t have time for foolish notions like ghosts.

  Mr. Graber couldn’t believe what he was hearing, how his dream of a place to live had a whole history he knew nothing about, a history not exact
ly conducive to the vacation business. The last thing he wanted was the story to start making the rounds again. That would kill the business for sure. He told the sheriff he thought maybe someone was playing a trick on them and had moved those gravestones onto the property in the night. There wasn’t any way they could have floated up from the lake. Since it was just a prank, he’d let it go and deal with the stones himself.

  He also said Sally must had gone out to watch the storm and fallen in the water and scared herself so bad she went into shock. The sheriff walked around again and then agreed that was probably what happened. After the sheriff left, glad he didn’t have any reports to file after all, Mr. Graber spent all that day and the next hauling those gravestones up into the woods, laying them here and there face down, so that eventually they’d be overgrown and forgotten. They’re still up there, as far as I know, so if you’re ever hiking in the woods, you just might stumble across one.

  And as for Sally, her hair never did grow back. She never spoke again, even after the Grabers took her to a specialist doctor in the city. He told them sometimes people just snapped, and there wasn’t much they could do about it. They decided to let her stay on the place, because her father just couldn’t handle a daughter who’d somehow gotten touched in the head, as they used to say. She was a good worker and the Grabers were happy to have her help. Mrs. Graber made her some bonnets, because it upset the guests to see a bald girl, and Sally wore them all the time. She was happiest when they built their little store and she could sit inside, Lucky next to her, keeping watch. Lucky never barked again, and when Mrs. Graber used to remark on it, Mr. Graber said it best not to question things. Some questions have answers a person doesn’t want to hear. He had his own question he never spoke aloud. If the coffins and the gravestones had risen to the surface, where were the bones?

  The End

  If you enjoyed this story, you might enjoy another work by Dee under her pen name, Lia Garret.

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