Beneath the Lake

by Christopher Ransom

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I just really grasped the fact, we are driving under the lake. I mean, this used to be water here. A lot of water. My family sailed across this land. We swam up there.’ He points to the roof of the Bronco. ‘At least thirty, maybe fifty feet above where we’re sitting now, Colt and Leonard and I were hanging off the back of the sailboat, dragging our legs through what is now bird-level. Isn’t that wild?’

  ‘It is. Really something. But I feel like we’re wandering kind of far off the —’

  The Bronco bounces hard, cutting her off. Ray shakes his head angrily as the steering wheel jerks through his palms. Something rough back there, like running over a fallen log. The sand is hardening, turning jagged. Through the windshield there is no sign of water.

  ‘Unbelievable. Lake must have gone down fifty to seventy vertical feet,’ he says. ‘We’re at least a mile from the point. Half the lake could be gone.’

  Megan throws up her hands. ‘What if there is no more lake?’

  Ray grunts, pushing the Bronco harder, anxious to find the water line, as if needing to prove something to her. The truck slams through a series of dried ruts. Megan spills beer on the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, but does not ease up on the gas pedal.

  The Bronco revs, the hood dips, rises, and a few seconds later they are airborne, weightless and falling over a drop whose bottom they cannot see. Ray’s stomach knots and he holds his breath as they levitate from their seats.

  ‘Ray!’ she hollers, raising a hand to keep from hitting her head on the roof-liner.

  ‘Hold on!’ as the nose dives.

  The truck comes down hard, throwing them against their restraining belts before springing them back against the seats. The steering wheels shimmies violently for a few seconds, and they bite through a final thick dune before levelling off. Things are eerily smooth for half a minute. He glances at the speedometer and sees that they have somehow reached forty-five miles per hour.

  ‘Ray! For God’s sake, slow down!’

  ‘All right!’ He lets off the gas and slaps the wheel.

  ‘Can we please stop?’ Megan says. ‘Now?’

  ‘What for?’

  She gapes at him.

  He turns into a patch of deep sand and lets the Bronco plow itself to a halt. Shuts off the engine, the lights. His heart is pounding. His legs feel like rubber and he is furious. He closes his eyes and breathes through his nose. The engine ticks and the smell of something burning comes from under the hood or chassis.

  ‘Hey. You okay?’ Megan rests a hand on his shoulder and he flinches. ‘Easy there, guy.’

  Ray blinks a few times. Forces himself to smile in apology. What are they doing out here? Why is he driving down an empty beach? The whole trip collapses in his mind. He wants to be home, alone, not with her, not responsible for this woman, who is really just a stranger, isn’t she? What could she possibly see in this excursion? Why did he think he could —

  ‘Ray? Why don’t we get out and stretch our legs. Take a break, hm?’

  He doesn’t want to get out of the truck, but realizes he’s scaring her. ‘Yeah, good idea. All this driving.’

  The sand is insidious, filling his sneakers after only a few steps. He twists an ankle, stops, sinks to his knees. Not tired. Just a little car woozy. He rakes two fistfuls of the powdery warmth and rubs them together.

  ‘Do you have a flashlight?’ Megan calls from the back of the Bronco. ‘I don’t want to wander off in the dark and trip over a log or something looking for the ladies’ room.’

  He stands reluctantly and joins her at the tailgate, using the key to power the rear window down. He opens the toolbox his father left behind and removes a pistol-grip flashlight with something like five thousand candle power. Pulls the trigger and aims the beam across the sand, away from the truck, scanning back and forth. The flashlight’s deep, defined cone of bluish white light reaches fifty times farther than the truck’s headlights. It’s like a beacon from a lighthouse, a thing that could bring down a plane. He searches and searches, walking around the truck, scanning in every direction.

  ‘Come on, you bastard,’ he mumbles, unclear whether he means the lake or his father. ‘I know you’re out there.’

  ‘Uhm… Ray?’ Megan is waiting for him to hand over the light.

  Sand, gradients of sand sloping down, down… and then blackness. Smooth, shiny blackness. Is that…? Yes! Six, seven hundred feet away, beyond the next down-step, a black shiny surface, roughened by breeze.

  He feels rescued, vindicated. ‘Megan, c’mere. Look.’

  She walks over to stand with him, leaning against his shoulder. ‘Aw. It’s still here. Now give me that thing before I wet my pants.’

  Ray surrenders the flashlight. Megan tromps off to a cluster of bushes, too short and bare to hide a person, but better than nothing. She shuts off the flashlight. Ray looks away, knowing she deserves privacy, even if he can’t see her. The moon is out, but his eyes are struggling to bring the landscape back into focus.

  A minute or two later, the light clicks on and comes bobbing back toward him. He sees feet in the sand, and the light sweeps up to his face, into his eyes, blinding him. It’s like being stabbed with a beam of raw headache.

  ‘Hey, watch it.’

  The white glare shifts beyond him, stops. He can’t see her. The circle dances wildly, closing on him, and shuts off. He is plunged into total darkness.

  ‘Megan, what are —’

  A body slams into him. One arm shoves, jerks him sideways, a hand clamps over his mouth. Hot breath on his ear.

  ‘SSShhhhh!’

  This does not sound like Megan. Megan should not be this strong, acting crazy.

  ‘Whuh —’ he manages, and then he is being dragged to the ground.

  ‘Be quiet!’ Megan growls in his ear.

  He has only a couple of seconds to be relieved it is her.

  She speaks very quietly, and he knows she is trembling. ‘We’re not alone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw them.’

  ‘Where? Who?’ He turns, trying to see her beside him, but her face is just a dark shape.

  ‘Down by the water. There’s a bunch of… not even sure they’re people. Almost like… dozens of them, all dressed in white.’

  Ray feels as though he has entered a dream, one that began when they crossed into Nebraska and won’t end until things have turned stranger and stranger and —

  ‘Standing there, facing the lake,’ Megan says. ‘When the light hit them, they all turned around. They saw me, Ray. They know we’re here.’

  The Tent

  After the short span of paralysis that follows, Ray reaches for the spotlight and Megan snatches it back.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ she whispers. ‘We’re not doing the little ranger shed again. We have to get back in the truck. Now.’

  She pulls him up and they scramble into the Bronco.

  ‘Don’t slam the door,’ she says.

  Ray latches his as softly as possible and sinks down in the driver’s seat. He can’t see anything beyond the first fifty feet of empty darkened beach, not without the headlights.

  Slowly, Megan leans forward until her hands rest on the dash, her chin above, forehead almost touching the glass. He watches her for a minute, sceptically. But the tension in her hands and shoulders is real.

  ‘What are we supposed to do now?’ he says, keeping his voice low but not yet willing to give into a whisper.

  She sits back. Blinks at him.

  ‘Do you want me to drive us out of here?’ he asks. ‘If so, I have to turn on the lights. It’s too dark. Smashing into a tree or the cliff would really not be good right now.’

  ‘What if they’re still there?’

  ‘The water is pretty far. Even if you did see some —’

  ‘I know what I saw. They turned around, Ray. All together, at the same time. They had faces. And their faces were like masks. Those milky, see-through masks on
ly bank robbers and serial killers use.’

  Ray doesn’t like the way that sounds. Worse than the masks is the idea of them all turning in unison. He rubs his mouth. ‘That’s not what I meant. I’m saying, I turn on the headlights. You aim the spotlight out the window. We take a good look. Count to five, ten at most. If those things are still there, we get a better idea of who’s screwing around out here.’

  ‘They were not regular people.’

  ‘Okay. A better idea of who or what. Bottom line, they’re either dangerous or they’re… well, what do you propose? You saw them. You tell me.’

  She looks at the windshield again. ‘Turn them on. It’s going to drive me crazy if I don’t know.’

  ‘Before or after I start the engine?’

  She chews her lower lip. ‘Before. But be ready to move.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Megan covers her face and makes a moaning sound.

  ‘Hey, it’s going to be all right,’ he says. ‘We’re safe in here. I have…’ But should he tell her about the gun? What if she hates guns, judges him for bringing it? Thinks he’s paranoid or dangerous?

  ‘What?’ she prods.

  ‘A hammer in the back. For staking a tent. Plus tire irons, tools. No one’s going to hurt us. I promise.’

  She nods.

  His fingers begin to twist the ignition tabs.

  ‘Wait! No engine, you said.’

  ‘I have to turn on the accessories for the lights to work.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  Ray twists the key two clicks. He pulls the headlights knob. A cone of beach turns golden white, but does not extend very far. There’s nothing within its reach except for sand, weeds and hazy darkness on either side.

  ‘The spotlight,’ he says.

  She turns, staring at the passenger window, which is solid black. ‘I’m too scared to roll it down.’

  ‘Shine the spot on it first.’

  Hesitantly, she raises the pistol grip and squeezes the trigger. It clicks, reflecting back at them, turning the entire cab bright white. Megan yelps, jumping out of her seat, and Ray gasps in reflex at her sudden movement.

  Megan fumbles the light over to him. ‘Turn it off! Off, off!’

  He does. ‘All right, all right. Calm down. I forgot about the reflection. I’ll do it.’

  He rolls his window down before she can compose herself and delay some more. Nothing on his side. He sweeps the light in his left hand, carefully studying the terrain until the beam is pointing straight ahead. It’s harder to find the water from inside the Bronco. He leans out the window, rising from his seat. Lowers the beam and peers above it, then to each side.

  ‘Can you see it?’

  ‘I think I see the lake, but it’s not as shiny now. The surface. It looks farther away, but I’m not even sure I’m looking in the right direction. Where were you standing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘In front of the Bronco? To the side? Your best guess.’

  ‘Behind and to my side, I think. But facing front, like we are now.’

  Ray shifts the spotlight farther right, then left, trying to follow the edge of its beam. His feet slip on the floormat and he sinks down, then pushes himself up again. Can’t hold a good position. He plants his left elbow on the door sill, gets his right foot under his weight, and in the process the spotlight tips forward, slipping from his hand.

  Falling outside, onto the beach.

  ‘Oops.’

  ‘You dropped it?’

  He looks over at her, then gestures toward the windshield. In the sudden absence of light, it appears pitch black now. Their eyes haven’t compensated yet.

  ‘Are you going to get it?’ Megan asks.

  ‘Kind of have to now.’

  ‘Hurry.’

  Ray sighs again. Pats along the door until he finds the latch. Pulls it, shouldering the door open with a loud creak. He looks down as he lowers his foot between the widening wedge of sand below. The spotlight is tilted backward, pointing under the Bronco, toward the rear end.

  His sneaker touches down in the sand and he keeps one hand on the door as he slips out, bending over. He reaches for it.

  White light flashes behind him, and Megan screams. Ray spins, falling backward. The back of his head knocks against the door’s inside panel before his butt lands on the beach. In the split second before the door rebounds, he sees the entire cab of the Bronco lit up as if thirty spotlights popped on at the same time, from inside.

  Megan is thrown back against her seat as if being electrocuted, mouth open, bathed in laboratory white. Her scream shuts off before her mouth closes.

  The strobe blinks out, its power ricocheting through his eyes, back into his brain in diminishing flares as his head thuds in the sand.

  He blinks away a small wave of dizziness, scrambling to his feet. He is still on one knee when something heavy and wide thumps hard down on the Bronco’s hood and Megan screams again. Ray jumps back as a black sheet of something incredibly fast and liquid glides over the windshield, the roof, and over the rear end.

  He ducks, grabbing for the spotlight with both hands. Snags it, swings it up by the nylon cord, finds the grip, pulls the trigger. He chases the black shape around the rear end of the Bronco, stabbing the beam in every direction as if the light were a weapon.

  ‘Ray! Don’t go!’ Megan shouts.

  There’s nothing out there, anywhere. No animals. No footprints. He raises the spot, arcing it through the air above, at the sky. But he knows it wasn’t a bird, not even a huge one, like a heron. It was just a wide black smudge, of something faster than any animal.

  ‘Ray!’

  ‘Coming!’

  He runs back, hops in, slams the door and rolls up the window.

  ‘Lock the doors!’ she cries. ‘All of them!’

  He palms the metal tee on his door. ‘The tailgate is manual. I have to go back out.’

  ‘No fucking way,’ Megan gasps.

  ‘What was that?’ he says, looking over his shoulders, through the windows.

  ‘I don’t care. Just go. Start it. Get us out of here.’

  He does, and Megan bursts into tears.

  An hour later they are still inside the Bronco, parked up by the cliffs, beside the only cover they could find – a low but wide shrub of some sort. Megan has stopped crying but looks entirely wrung out. After racing off in a blind panic, they argued for at least fifteen minutes about where the boat ramp should be, driving aimlessly. Up and down the beach, back and forth, in circles. It was her idea to stop, before they ran into something else or became more lost than they already were.

  He found the shrub, and she helped herself to another beer. She drank most of it in three long swallows, one hand pressed over her heart. His own was still beating in time with the sore spot at the back of his head. He tried asking her for more details, what she saw and felt as it hit the hood, but she only shook her head. Not yet.