Beneath the Lake

by Christopher Ransom

  Now they sit in silence, watching, checking the windows, but not with the spotlight. Megan took it away from him, scowled at it, then threw it into the cargo bay. He represses a yawn, knowing she will not let them sleep here.

  ‘Tell me about something else,’ she says. ‘Just talk. About anything except what just happened.’

  Ray tries to summon a happy memory. ‘I miss the toads. There used to be hundreds of toads on the beach at night. We would collect them in a bucket. Toads the size of softballs, little babies like a pencil eraser. But they’re gone now, I think. Something drove them away —’

  ‘Ray.’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Did you keep them?’ she asks. ‘Take them home?’

  ‘No, we always released them a few hours later. My mom was afraid we’d get warts, but we never did.’

  ‘Maybe it was reflections in the water, some trees,’ Megan says, changing the subject. ‘A bunch of high school kids having a rave or something. That’s possible, right?’

  Ray frowns. Is she trying to talk herself out of what she saw? Of course she is. He has been too. Trying to find a rational explanation for the black thing, the one that moved like an anti-spotlight but somehow managed to bang the hood like a giant bat before lifting off again.

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘It’s late. We’re exhausted. All these little details are piling up. We’re probably imagining things, blowing it all out of proportion. We should go to sleep for a few hours, look for my family in the morning. If they’re not here, we’ll find the boat ramp and head home.’

  ‘Fine, but not here. I can’t sleep here.’

  ‘When you’re lost in the woods, aren’t you supposed to stay put until you regain a sense of direction? We can’t do that at night.’

  ‘Pick one direction and go for a mile or so in a straight line. We can handle that, right?’

  Ray starts the truck. ‘I can fold up the back seat and you can stretch out in back for a while.’

  Megan nods. ‘Thank you.’

  He turns the Bronco away from the cliff and they begin to roll. ‘Headlights okay?’

  ‘I guess.’

  After a mile or two of the straightest line he is capable of, they dip into a low valley, then rise again to find themselves facing another series of cliffs. They seem familiar, and Ray banks the Bronco left, heading (he believes) in the direction of the boat ramp. Megan doesn’t comment, and they trundle along at a moderate clip for another ten or fifteen minutes. He is watching the sand, looking for their earlier tire tracks, but so far there is no sign of them.

  Megan sits up straight, then rolls her window down and leans out, watching something far off to their right.

  ‘Whoa, what’s with the newfound bravery?’ he says.

  She points toward three o’clock. ‘Turn that way.’

  He does. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Somebody’s camping, a really big set-up. It looks like the circus came to town.’

  Ray follows her extended arm like a compass needle, until the headlight beams slowly bring it into focus. A tent the size of a small house appears, with rooms and additions, an awning staked over a makeshift porch of lawn chairs and other piles of equipment. There is at least one vehicle nearby, a big truck, maybe some umbrellas planted in the sand and some other odds and ends strewn about, but they are not close enough yet to make out the details.

  ‘Is that them?’ Megan asks.

  ‘Probably. No one else would be crazy enough to camp out here.’

  Ray slows the Bronco to a walking pace. With all that’s happened since they found the entrance road, he has forgotten to prepare himself for the moment. The reality of seeing his family in the flesh. The relief that would follow far outweighs his earlier misgivings.

  ‘I don’t see any people,’ she says.

  ‘It’s late. They must be asleep.’

  Twenty yards and closing. The tent is boxy, tall, the canvas a faded gray or light brown. Steel poles and ropes all around, a wind chime of some sort hanging off one corner. It’s quite a contraption, and a settled one.

  The truck is white, a weathered model from the seventies, the panels over the wheels rusted out. A trailer is attached, the kind of open flatbed with wood walls for hauling hay or lawn equipment.

  ‘This can’t be them,’ he says. ‘I don’t see my father or Leonard driving out in that, and Colt wouldn’t be caught dead in that tent.’

  Ten yards off, Ray turns the headlights away from the camp site.

  ‘We can’t give up yet,’ Megan says.

  ‘Can’t shine our brights into their tent. It’s rude.’

  They circle the front, the truck, the half-dozen lawn chairs scattered around, keeping a polite distance. The lawn chairs are old, with fraying webbing of yellow and green nylon, the kind that itch your bare legs and fold up like a mousetrap if you fail to sit down just right or weigh more than a hundred pounds.

  ‘Any movement?’ he asks.

  Megan frowns, glancing at him and back to the camp ground, trying to find a way to voice some concern.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he says, slowing to a halt. The camp site is behind them.

  ‘Does any of this stuff look familiar to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really? You better look again.’

  Ray leans out his window, peering intently at the spread, then back to her. Megan is chewing her lips nervously. Scared.

  ‘What am I missing?’ he says.

  ‘The story you told me…’ She waits for him to finish the thought. ‘The other family?’

  For a moment Ray’s mind simply short-circuits. He has no idea what she is referring to. And then some kind of wishful ignorance mechanism fails and everything clicks into place.

  Big ugly tent, faded gray, but very well might have been green.

  Beaten white truck.

  Ratty lawn chairs.

  A bunch of gear that looks like it’s been sitting in the sun for thirty years.

  ‘No… no way.’ He yanks the shifter into reverse. The wheels dig hard, throwing sand in all directions as they circle once more. He lands the headlamps square on the tent. He studies it for a moment, then edges alongside it. ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a coincidence,’ Megan says in a rush. ‘Same kind of tent but some other family.’

  ‘That’d be a hell of a coincidence,’ Ray says.

  The front flaps of the tent are clipped shut with a few clothespins.

  ‘What’s the alternative?’

  ‘The family that almost drowned in the storm decided to come back to Blundstone the same year my family did. Or they never left.’

  ‘What the hell is happening out here, Ray?’

  Ray has no answer for her. He is thinking about the gun in his bag again.

  Megan crosses her arms. ‘You want to walk over there in the middle of the night and wake them up, don’t you?’

  ‘My family is missing,’ he says. ‘They should be here, and they are not here, unless they’re in that tent or there is some kind of other ridiculous explanation. Either way, you see, we don’t have a choice.’

  Megan shakes her head.

  ‘You can wait in the truck,’ he says. ‘I don’t expect you to be a part of this.’

  He reaches for the door and she stops him, taking hold of his arm.

  ‘Wait,’ Megan says. ‘If someone comes out and it’s not one of your family members, we’re leaving, driving out, right now. No excuses.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And try calling out first. Politely. Before you exit the truck.’

  Ray nods. Rolls down the window.

  ‘Hello? Excuse me?’ Then a little louder. ‘Sorry to wake you, hello!’

  No action. No lights inside.

  ‘Hello?’ Megan tries. ‘Anyone home?’

  They sit. They wait. There is no response.

  Ray bursts into laughter.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘This! Right here! Wh
at the hell are we doing, shouting at an empty tent?’

  ‘Leaving. We’re leaving, Ray.’

  He turns once more to yell through the window, and his voice halts in his throat.

  The flaps of the tent’s front door bowl open and a man rises up, taking two quick steps over the sand before stopping. He is tall, hulking, and one of his arms is twice as long as the other. The deep voice carries clearly in the night.

  ‘Get out of the truck,’ the man says, and Ray realizes it is not his arm. The man is holding something long and slender, raising it to his shoulder. Bare shoulder, bare chest, bare everything. ‘Now, before I burn the two of you down.’

  Twenty paces away. Stark naked and aiming a rifle at them.

  Ray is paralyzed, his spirit lifting out of his body. The man walks, the barrel tip and the larger black eye of the scope steady and looming larger with each step.

  ‘Do what he says, Ray. Exactly what he says.’

  Slowly, Ray twists his neck and looks back.

  A phosphorescent green dot has settled at the center of Megan’s throat.

  Pleased to Meet You

  They stand side by side on the dark and endless beach, holding hands. Megan’s breathing is irregular but quiet. Ray does not feel himself breathing at all.

  During the past terribly magnified minute or so, while they went about sliding from their seats and joining on this side of the Bronco as they were told, the man has been walking toward them, toes inching along as if balancing on a rope in the sand. The green dot has been shifting from one to the other. Ray keeps trying to think of some clever way to get to his father’s pistol in the bag in the back of the Bronco or, barring that, something clever to say to stall this madness and begin the process of talking their way out of it. But clever has decided it wants no part of this situation.

  ‘Don’t be brave,’ Megan whispers.

  Ray squeezes her hand a little harder.

  The man is stocky but ill-defined, and deeply tanned. What Ray mistook for bald is actually a scalp turfed with gray stubble about the length of the man’s five-day beard. The chest and thighs are mostly hairless. The man appears to lack even a shred of embarrassment or self-awareness, as if he were some form of primate for whom clothes are an unnatural nuisance, tried once at someone else’s urging and long ago discarded. The eyes are somehow hugely open and calm, lake-water-black, the sum of it all giving Ray the strong impression of an executioner.

  ‘Who told you?’ the man says in a moderate, almost sleepy voice.

  Ray’s lips part but the words do not come.

  ‘Was it Portland Lance? Baby-Tree? Who’s paying your fare?’ The man is four or five steps away and the rifle is aimed at Ray’s chest. The green laser sight has gone out, or settled between his eyes. ‘This is a nice place to bury someone, so if you come to collect,’ the man says, ‘you might want to rethink that.’

  ‘We’re not,’ Ray says. ‘I don’t know those people. We’re lost.’

  ‘Bull, bull, bullshit.’

  This odd statement sounds weirdly familiar to Ray. And: Portland?

  ‘We’re looking for his family,’ Megan says. Ray is impressed with the clarity and control of her voice. ‘We’re just camping, I promise you.’

  The man takes two more steps. He lowers the rifle, gazing at her, then back to Ray. For the first time, Ray sees the man blink.

  ‘Ray?’ the man says. ‘That you?’

  Ray’s entire body slackens. His mouth is quivering with fear, gratitude, relief. And then a lot of anger.

  ‘Leonard,’ he says.

  ‘Holy shit. That’s my goddamn brother! Get over here, you sonofabitch. I almost shot you!’ And then the naked man is laughing, holding his big belly and laughing like a hog fed up on rotten corn.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Megan releases Ray’s hand and staggers away.

  ‘You fucking asshole,’ Ray says. ‘A gun —?’

  He stomps over to his big brother, slaps the barrel aside. The rifle falls in the sand and Ray punches Leonard in the mouth. ‘You stupid shit!’ He kicks Leonard in the shin as the big man buckles to his knees. ‘Sick bastard!’

  ‘Enough!’ Megan shouts.

  Leonard is still laughing, holding up one arm to ward off more blows. He spits blood into the sand. ‘I thought you were someone else!’

  Ray kicks his brother in the kidney, but the fight is leaving him. He is too relieved to carry this any further, and, no matter how well deserved, there is something unseemly about kicking a naked man in his middle age.

  ‘Who else would be out here, you fucking maniac? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I got people,’ Leonard says, catching his breath and wiping blood across his forearm. ‘Looking for me. Debts. Lots of… debts.’

  Gambling losses, Ray thinks. The IRS. Drug dealers. It could be anything, anyone, and this is no surprise. His brother has probably screwed and swindled more people than he’s shaken hands with.

  ‘You almost shot your brother and… his girlfriend. You slob. What the hell are you doing with a gun and no clothes?’

  Leonard struggles to his feet, wheezing, and Ray realizes his brother is not well. He used to be skinny, wired on cigarettes and risk. Now he is bloated, gray, pathetic. Whatever Leonard has been doing with it, life has given him what he deserves.

  Leonard looks at Megan, who has mustered the courage to rejoin them. ‘I’m really sorry about that, miss. I didn’t mean to scare you. Leonard Mercer.’

  He offers his hand as if he were dressed in a suit and tie, and things only turn weirder when Megan steps forward to shake it.

  ‘Megan, and you need to be more careful.’

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, darlin’.’

  ‘No, no,’ Ray says. ‘Don’t make up anything to anyone.’

  ‘Look at you, with a woman and all. I always thought you were half gay.’ Leonard throws an arm around Ray. ‘God damn I missed you, Ray-Ray.’

  ‘I have clothes in the truck,’ Ray says, pushing his brother off him. ‘And what the hell? You saw the beast and thought you better pull a gun on us to be sure?’

  Leonard stares at the Bronco. ‘Why would I think that gas pig belonged to you?’

  ‘It’s been in our family for over thirty years.’

  Leonard blinks earnestly. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That’s Dad’s Bronco, Leonard. You grew up in it. Is there anything left of your brain, or did you fry every last cell?’

  ‘Ray, I don’t remember the names of my three ex-wives. Well, Sheri, but she was a special case. She had these toes like – hey, why are you driving Dad’s truck?’