Beneath the Lake

by Christopher Ransom

  ‘I got you, baby girl, I got everything,’ he says, smiling down at – he sees her face clearly and stops. Ray lowers her to the ground and sits back, releasing her.

  ‘Oooooooh, no. No, baby… I’m sorry…’

  She is not the woman who bled to death in the truck bed, whispering beside him. She is not the woman who sat in the morning sun less than twenty-four hours ago, holding her daughter in her lap while they argued like spoiled children over brunch. She is not the post-partum-depressed mother playing at high society in New York, suffering the greatest of brutalities at the hands of the man who vowed to love and protect her above all others.

  She is only his sister, Colt. Eleven or twelve and coppered by the sun, her blonde hair radiant even when wet, her green one-piece swimsuit still damp from her swim. She is the way he always preferred to remember her, diving into the magic they discovered that fateful day, as he watched and envied her from the safety of the camper bunk. Laughing and splashing and cavorting in the waves, as if she knew there was nothing to fear. As if she had seen the future in a bolt of lightning, and understood that no matter how the dark clouds teemed, how wickedly the wind raced across the lake, the real storm would never catch her.

  But where?

  There is nowhere else. This is the world now.

  No place for her but here.

  With Mom.

  He buries his smaller, lovelier, time-capsule-preserved big sister close to the water, using his hands to dig and then later fill the hole. He marks the grave with the last thing he can do without, all he can find, his worn-out Paul Smith sneakers. Their weathered rainbow stripes are as much of a nod to flowers as the day will allow.

  The sun takes its throne in the afternoon sky. The sand is a griddle and he sticks close to the lake, dunking himself every mile or two, and then walks on until his clothes have dried out and swims again. He makes his way up the beach on blistering bare feet, a pair of fresh legs, and a second wind he never expected to find so late in the game.

  This might be the right direction, but he has no way of knowing. The lake is a shrinking orb, distorted and sprouting new tentacles in a desperate battle to hang on. But in the end it is only a lake, not a sea. A drunken circle that will lead him home, eventually.

  He walks, and the sun burns, and he takes what he deserves.

  He is tempted to look back now and then; on those occasions he hears her voice calling after him, her young voice begging him to come back and play a game of horse before it’s time to go. But he does not indulge her. She had her chance and left him in the driveway. He increases his pace with each of her lonely appeals to his sympathy, hurrying toward the last of his family, hoping for a little more time with them before succumbing to that nameless thing that awaits them all.

  Mimicry

  Nearing a sand point that seems familiar, with its grassy median and a base populated by real trees, Ray strays from the beach and cuts through the field, which should be faster than walking all the way out to this point – not theirs – and back down the other side of the narrow finger. The sandy ground fills in with sharp grasses and dry weeds that tickle at his shins. A few hundred yards later he enters a low woods, the shade and cooler sand such a relief he nearly moans in gratitude.

  He is forced to move slower in the foliage, avoiding brambles and deadfall debris that snag at his arms and clothes. He winds around patches of black mud, sheets of dead yellow leaves that taunt him with the prospect of sleep. He ducks under thick webbings of white silk, hammocks of gunk that might be insect habitat or tree fungus or something else he doesn’t care to dwell on (but now that I already am dwelling on it maybe it was the stuff that cocooned Megan’s family and turned them into crabs and maybe I’m next, so keep ducking and try not to touch it). The woods are fragrant with swamp rot and bitter shrubs that make him sneeze.

  Subtle movement on the ground.

  Ray pauses.

  A few feet ahead and off to his right. Something small and brown and not much bigger than a rope of licorice inches forward, its sinuous movements the only thing setting off its beige spots from the rest of the leaves and ashen sand. The wildlife and insects have been such a non-factor on this trip, he has forgotten what it’s like to stumble upon another creature in situ. He stops, scanning the area, missing the living portion of it several times before the pattern slides a few feet more, revealing itself. A welcome thrill runs up Ray’s spine.

  It’s a snake, and not a dangerous one. A medium-sized Western Hognose, so named for its upturned snout, which looks remarkably like the bill of a duck or platypus, giving the reptile an exotic but cute aspect. Leonard and Ray used to catch terrestrial garter snakes out here, as well as bullsnakes, but the hognose were less common. For this reason, and because of their docility, they were always Ray’s favorite find. He must have handled a dozen of them over the course of those five trips and never once was bitten.

  Ray moves in slowly, stepping around it, avoiding sticks and leaves. He takes another step, and crouches, the hognose within arm’s reach. He longs to pick it up, carry it with him back to camp like a good luck charm, but he hesitates. The hognose feeds on smaller amphibians and fish that can be easily ingested without the dramatic strangling or venom so many other snakes rely on. Its preferred meals are toads, and though he and Leonard and Colt used to catch those by the bucketful, the trusting creatures lining the beach at night like an audience, Ray hasn’t seen a single toad on this trip. Which makes this encounter a weirdly affirming sign. Where there is predator there must be prey. Ray has no intention of removing the optimistic little guy from his blighted habitat.

  He leans down for a closer view, setting one hand in the sand to keep his balance. The hognose reacts, twisting its neck and pushing its snout into the sand, digging back and forth as if trying to burrow under.

  ‘Easy, fella,’ Ray says, knowing the snake can’t hear him. They don’t have ears. ‘No one’s gonna hurt you.’

  A shiver spirals through the hognose’s muscled length and the tail curls into a question mark as the snake rolls onto its back. Its jaw, no wider than the pad of Ray’s index finger, clicks open. The thin black tongue waves out, flickers once and is still. The snake is apparently dead.

  It’s a convincing act, Ray knows. Leonard showed him this years ago. Some snakes hiss and strike to ward off threats, or simply flee. Others, like the bullsnake, vibrate their tails in the loose cover to mimic the rattlesnake. The hognose plays dead. In a bit of theatrics – the open mouth, lolling tongue – the creature literally goes belly up. The species’ abdominal scales happen to be a starkly contrasting mosaic of black and yellow tiles, a detail Leonard never explained but which Ray thinks now must have something to do with the black and yellow of death, rot, decomposition, poison. The belly is the hognose’s last-ditch effort to throw up a warning sign.

  Go ahead, do what you want with me, the little hognose seems to be saying with this ruse. You can’t hurt me because I’m already dead. And why would you want me for a meal? I’ve spoiled in the sun. Eat me if you must, but you probably won’t feel too good later. You might even suffer, dying the slow, inside-out death of a poisoning.

  Ray hooks a finger through the curled loop of tail, draping its limp form over his left palm. The snake clings to its own illusion a few seconds more, then reluctantly rolls over and begins to slither through Ray’s fingers, tongue flicking, inspecting the giant that has called his bluff.

  ‘See? I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you.’

  The snake flares the looser skin of its neck, but otherwise seems resigned to whatever fate Ray has in store for it. He wonders what it must be like, this simple existence. Reptiles don’t have the higher brain functions, no real emotions. They know only the positive and negative of primitive drivers: hunger and thirst versus satiation, cold versus warm, dark versus light, shelter from exposure, movement or stillness, danger and the much rarer peace.

  No one to help him forage or keep a home, pass the long nights in w
aiting for another dose of sun. He is surrounded by nature but perfectly isolated. Alone, without the curse of loneliness.

  Bask, eat, grow, breed, rest, die.

  Survival.

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ Ray says. ‘What do you think? Mind if I stay a while?’

  The snake’s tongue comes forth in a slow lash, wagging over the hair on his wrist. The tiny gold rings around its black pupils shift robotically and then freeze. The snake slithers higher, balancing on his arm, no more afraid of him than of a tree branch.

  ‘Fuck ’em, right? Let ’em come for us.’

  Ray sets the snake down in a divot of sand. He runs the pad of his thumb over its dorsal scales, feeling the tiny hard spine inside. Tickled or simply wanting to take advantage of the pardon before it can be rescinded, the hognose transits away in a blur, crossing a blanket of yellow leaves and then vanishing under a blackened comb of grass.

  Ray listens to the quiet scrapes and scuffle of its locomotion until the woods fall silent, then rises and continues through the growth, looking for toads, hoping to spot at least one, even a dead one, to prove the little hognose has a fighting chance. If not for years to come, then at least one more meal.

  He never does, though. The toads must have packed it in years ago. Loaded up the toad campers and toad SUVs, tossed all their toad beer cans in the weeds and taken one final pee in the sand before hopping off to a better, kinder place.

  The trees thin. The grass breaks up. Ray is out in the sun once more. He is severely dehydrated, and his appetite has passed beyond hunger into a kind of euphoric hyper-arousal. He has not slept for more than seven of the past fifty hours. He no longer remembers what the point of the trip was, why any of them are here, or what he was hoping to take home when it is all over.

  He’s thirsty, that’s all.

  Very thirsty.

  Airstream

  Half asleep and staring at the sand moving below his feet, Ray comes upon the old green tent, nearly tripping over one of the staked ropes. The sudden presence of it, along with the knowledge that base camp is so close, renders his arrival a seemingly magical turn of events. He had forgotten he was looking for camp at all, but thank goodness someone dropped it here to remind him.

  He yanks the Bronco door open and roots around in the cooler, coming up with the last of the water bottles. He guzzles the entire warm contents, hiccups once, and the liter of water spouts back into the air and is taken by the sand.

  He tries again, this time with a hot can of pale ale, forcing himself to sip as he walks into the clearing. By the time the picnic table is in view, Ray feels drunk and lobs the remaining half of the beer into a bush. He finds a cooler under the trailer, digs out a new liter of shockingly cold water and plops down in a lawn chair. The beer seems to have calmed his roiling belly somewhat, and the sips of water stay down.

  ‘Megan,’ Ray tries to shout. ‘Megan? Dad? Hey!’

  No one answers.

  Heaving himself up, Ray shuffles to the trailer. Inside, the darkness is so deep – after hours of sun but no sunglasses – Ray can’t see past his groping hands.

  ‘Sierra? Honey?’

  No one answers.

  Because they’re already dead.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ he says to the empty trailer. ‘Not now.’

  Pupils expanding, he opens the refrigerator and grabs the nearest container. It’s heavy, filled with cubed cantaloupe. He sits on the bench seat and begins to stuff his sore mouth with cold sweet blocks of melon, chewing each piece once before swallowing. He can feel the chunks in his belly like ice cubes lobbed into a plastic cup.

  He knows he should check the dome tent where he and Megan spent last night

  … or was that two nights ago? Feels like they have been here a month, all summer… no more walking… the Leonard-ling is buried back there, where the sand is turning black. His hands shake almost violently from low-blood sugar. Hurry, hurry.

  He bites his fingertip, hard, to keep from passing out.

  Think.

  He needs to get up, go look for them, find help, escape this barren beach and get away from this evil body of water forever, all of those and in whatever order is fastest – but right now he can barely chew food and string together a coherent thought. So, eat as much as possible without throwing up. Drink another liter of water. Wait for the dizzyness to fade. Because until we have taken care of the machine, the machine will not take care of us. Or the free-and-a-half-year old.

  Ray rummages in the icebox again. Zippered pouch of deli meat. About a pound and a half of it. Something from the gourmet side of the ham family? It is spicy and sweet on his tongue. He folds half a dozen slices into a ball and stuffs them into his mouth, chewing, swallowing. He takes another bottle of water from the fridge, fumbles the cap off and the bottle slips from his shaking hands. He bends for it, raises it, chugs more, and his head swims. He stood up too fast, his vision blurs. The trailer turns spotty black, spinning. No, no, wait —

  Ray faints.

  The world was black, then gray. His father was telling him about the curvature of the earth, reminding him to look across the surface of the lake as they drove in across the dam. The lake had turned to slate, flat as a table. For a moment there, Ray was sure he could see to the end.

  ‘Ray?’ Megan says. ‘Are you awake? Are you hurt?’

  Ray sits up, blinking, trying to remember where he is. Megan is staring at him with controlled concern. Sierra stands behind her, watching him as if he might bite. ‘No, yeah, I’m good. We’re good.’

  Megan sits on the bed beside him, clutching the girl. ‘I told you he’d come back, honey. See? Uncle Ray’s all right. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he says, for Sierra’s benefit, though in another way it is true. He no longer feels hammered with sun fever and his headache is gone.

  Then he remembers where he is, what has happened.

  Remembers the dead.

  ‘Where’s Mommy?’ Sierra asks. ‘When’s Mommy coming back?’

  Ray swallows hard and looks to Megan, whose expression carries the same question but far less optimism about the answer.

  ‘Mommy went with Fa-Fa, sweetie,’ Ray tells his niece, which is terribly true. ‘They had to go home a little early. But it’s okay. Mommy said for me to tell you she loves you very much, and we’ll be with her soon. We’re all going home real soon.’

  Sierra collapses in such a mess of broken-hearted tears, Ray can’t help but wonder if she knows the real truth. And maybe she does. Maybe she senses the greater truth behind all of this, the way Ray himself has begun to, since leaving his shoes for a headstone. That growing sense that none of them are getting out of here alive.

  Megan reads their obituaries in his eyes. The way he stares at his niece, no longer smiling. She leans into him and whispers. ‘I’m sorry. So very sorry.’

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ Ray whispers back.

  ‘Up on the point,’ Megan says, no longer whispering. Apparently this is common knowledge, suitable for all ages. ‘He wanted to go look for you two, but I made him promise to stay within running distance. We compromised. He’s keeping a lookout.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘And for help,’ Megan says. ‘Or, uhm, anything else that might happen along.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be alone. It’s almost dark again.’

  ‘He took Leonard’s rifle.’

  The rifle. Guns. What Ray wouldn’t trade now to have had the pistol out on the road this morning. That he forgot to take it when they set out to find Francine now seems an oversight akin to a priest forgetting to take his crucifix into an exorcism.