Beneath the Lake

by Christopher Ransom

  And yet, in another flash of retroactive premonition, Ray doubts the gun would have saved Colt. Even if he’d shot the ranger on arrival, something else would have gotten her. Or him instead. The lake is time, or maybe the sand is time, and this is one big hourglass they are trapped in. But whatever it is, time has all the power here. And you can’t change time. Isn’t that what his father said? What his mother knew? Time moves in one direction. Defeats all efforts to slow it down. Always wins.

  ‘Ray? When did you get back?’ Megan nudges him back to attention.

  ‘I don’t know. I think I fainted. Where were you two?’

  ‘In the tent, our tent. Napping.’

  He looks around the trailer, puzzled. ‘This is safer than any tent.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Megan says, biting her lip.

  ‘No white light in the tent,’ Sierra adds with a sniff.

  Megan moves to the door, bending a little to peer through the window.

  We have to get out of here. Now. It’s going to kill us all.

  But he can’t say such things out loud. Not in front of Sierra. Scaring her to death isn’t going to solve anything. He needs to stay calm but get them moving. Now.

  ‘So, what’s the plan, Sierra?’ he says, attempting to cheer her up. ‘Should we go get Grandpa and blow this giant bathtub? Hop on the road and —’

  ‘Be quiet,’ Megan says. She is still staring out the window, then pressing her ear to the glass. ‘Both of you, hush a minute.’

  Sierra pouts, crawling across the floor to sit closer to Ray. He tousles her hair, watching Megan. For the love of God, what now? Sierra digs into one of the travel bags. She comes up with a doll, the plastic kind, and it’s not wearing any clothes but there is sand in its hair. Little beige granules on its legs and arms. He wonders if Sierra was playing with it on the beach earlier and if it was her idea to bury it, or if something… inspired her.

  Ray looks away from the doll to find Megan staring at him, her face a mask of alarm.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s a woman nosing around the camp ground with a flashlight,’ Megan whispers. ‘I thought I heard someone on our way here, walking behind the trees. There’s something not right about her… I could swear I’ve seen her before.’

  ‘Some-ting not right ’bout her,’ Sierra mocks. ‘I seened her before.’

  They both look at her, wondering where that came from, or was she just trying to be a part of the conversation? No. The girl looks worried again, though not scared, not exactly. There is a stillness to her, an adult kind of weariness.

  ‘What, sweetie?’ Megan says, crouching beside Sierra. ‘What about her?’

  ‘I dint like her,’ Sierra says matter-of-factly. ‘She try scare Mommy away.’

  ‘When was this?’ Megan begins to stroke Sierra’s hair. ‘When did you and your Mommy see her?’

  ‘At the store.’ As if this were obvious, where else?

  ‘What store?’ Ray says. ‘At the lake? On the way to the lake, or before that?’

  Sierra nods. ‘At the milkshakes. Mommy had chocolate and I ate strawberry.’

  Store. Milkshakes.

  ‘The truck stop,’ Ray says, staring at Megan, his trepidation already turning to fury. He did not trust the woman’s eyes in the diner, and after all that has happened since, even the memory of her raises his hackles. ‘The waitress. Andie. The one we pissed off.’

  ‘She tried to warn us,’ Megan says. ‘She told us to stay away.’

  ‘Warned us at first,’ he says. ‘But after I cracked the joke about her moral outrage, remember that? “You know what, young man? You go right on ahead. Go on out to that lake and see what comes of it.” Like she knew we would come. I think you need to trust your earlier instincts.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Megan says. ‘But what if it’s just some innocent camper? Our only chance for a ride home? We need help, Ray. We need a whole lot of help.’

  Ray almost spits out the truth, but stops himself for Sierra. How can he make her understand? ‘Okay, look. We tried that earlier. The ride. The helpful ranger. He wasn’t very nice. He tried to sell us a park permit and we refused and the fines turned out to be extremely expensive.’ Ray casts his eyes to Sierra and back to Megan as if to add, That’s where Mommy went. Get it?

  Megan’s eyes widen and she covers her mouth.

  ‘The ranger is missing,’ he adds. ‘She could be looking for him. We can’t trust anybody now. This woman outside, not a coincidence.’

  Sierra keeps flapping the doll’s head against her thigh, bored, agitated by their whispering inattention, and probably still angry that they let her mother leave without her. She opens her knees and begins to whack the Barbie’s head against the trailer’s solid wood floor. In any other situation, the sound would be innocuous. Now, in the contained silence, it seems to carry like a jackhammer.

  Megan seizes the doll and presses her other hand over Sierra’s mouth.

  Outside, a tree limb or something like it snaps with a sharp crack. A flashlight beam streaks across the window behind Ray’s head. The orange cone pierces the interior, flattens on the wall and dances up to the ceiling, quivers, blinks out.

  Ray wants to believe the woman found something else to shine her light on, has given up and moved on. But he knows better. The doll gave them away.

  Can’t get up and lock the door, not now. Can’t fumble around for a weapon.

  Can’t risk even the slightest sound.

  They sit on the floor, eyes darting, holding their breath.

  Click.

  The trailer door opens, and a few seconds later the light is on them.

  Offering

  Megan is closest to the door, and Ray would have to leap over Sierra and knock Megan out of the way to beat her to the front line of defense. To his surprise, Megan springs to her feet first, facing the bulky figure groping at the wall and wagging her flashlight around the galley.

  ‘Hey! Excuse you!’ Megan barks. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  The woman rears back. ‘Oh, jeez, you scared the heck out of me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to —’

  ‘You walked into someone else’s camper uninvited. Where’s the “didn’t mean to” in that?’

  ‘Calm down, now, honey,’ Andie the waitress says. Ray can’t see her face but he remembers her pear shape and the country twang. It’s the coarse voice of a middle-aged woman still trying to sound like a diner flirt long after the necessary hormones have abandoned her. ‘I saw them trucks vandalized and no one around, I got to worrying something happened to you all.’

  ‘Get that light out of my face,’ Megan says. ‘And step outside, please. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  Andie makes a hmmppff sound, pokes the beam down at Sierra, then clicks it off. ‘That girl looks scared. Where’s the rest of your party?’

  ‘I’m asking you to step outside, and this is the last time I’m asking,’ Megan says. ‘Anything you care to discuss will happen out there, not here.’

  ‘There goes your city manners for ya,’ Andie grumbles, twisting and fussing to get turned around and back down the steps, drawing out her exit as long as possible. ‘Only trying to help.’

  Megan tromps over and slams the door.

  ‘Wow,’ Ray says. ‘Nice work.’

  Megan returns, exhaling. ‘I think I can talk to her, now that some ground rules have been established.’

  ‘No, no way,’ Ray says. ‘You stay with Sierra. I’ll handle it.’

  ‘But what if she’s not part of it? How do we know?’

  ‘I’ll find a way. But we can’t afford to be wrong again.’

  Megan looks uneasy. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Any chance my dad’s pistol is in here?’

  ‘He wanted me to take it but I’d only end up hurting myself. Not sure where he left it. Sorry.’

  ‘Okay. Lock the door behind me. Don’t come out until I say it’s safe. I don’t care what kind of trouble you see or hea
r. If you don’t hear me say it’s safe, you don’t open this door. Got it?’

  Megan nods. ‘But what does she want, Ray? Even if you’re right?’

  Ray scans the walls and shelves of his father’s rolling Army surplus store, searching for a weapon that won’t announce itself. Lots of tools, none large. Various nets holding utensils, pots and pans. He settles on a sleek bamboo fishing rod braced to the ceiling in a foam-rubber clip. The rod is light, thin, at least seven feet long, with a fly reel and no line. Something about its cork grip feels right in his hands, and they’re out of time. It’ll have to do.

  Ray looks down at Sierra, reminding himself of the promise he made to Colt.

  Your daughter now. Take care of her.

  ‘I don’t care what she wants. She can’t have it. Be back in a minute.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Megan says.

  Ray shuts the door and steps back into the sand.

  Their visitor is sitting in one of the lawn chairs on the other side of the fire pit, facing the mouth of the clearing as if admiring a passing parade of geese. An old squareblock flashlight is at her feet. The inverted lantern casts a murky yellow glow wide enough for Ray to see her peddle-pusher acid-washed jeans, and the University of Nebraska sweatshirt, the usual big red swapped out for blue with a sparkly pink NU logo and the adjacent breast cancer-awareness ribbon. It’s Andie, all right. The same sourpuss hiding behind her jowly customer service mask, decked out for a night-time walk on the beach.

  ‘I am so sorry about that,’ she says, waving a hand at him. ‘Hope you don’t mind if I rest my pups a minute before turning back. It’s not an easy hike down here for any cousin, but for a woman my age it’s a double tax.’

  ‘What can we do for you, Andie?’ Ray says, idly casting the rod toward the lake. It feels like a sword in his hand, which pleases him.

  ‘Wasn’t sure y’all recognized me, but I’m glad you did,’ Andie says. ‘That your girl in the camper? I didn’t meet her when you stopped on your way in.’

  ‘Those are indeed my girls.’ He smiles wide, baring his teeth, and flicks the rod a few more times. ‘So, what brings you out? On foot, no less.’

  ‘Friend of the family went missing. Old partner set out around five this morn, shoulda been back by seven but whudn’t. His kids are worried. Maybe you seen him? Drives an old Game and Parks vehicle. I been by half a dozen camp grounds already and you’re the only folks out here.’

  ‘Huh,’ Ray says. ‘You call the police? I’m sure they could help.’

  ‘That a no? You ain’t seen him?’

  Until this moment, Andie has been avoiding eye contact. Now she studies him with her brows bunched, mouth set in a pucker.

  ‘Since we set up camp two days ago, we haven’t seen another living soul,’ Ray says in a lazy drawl. ‘You weren’t kidding. This lake is closed. She’s drying up, and taking all the fun along with her.’

  The big woman raises one foot to her knee, removes her sneaker and taps out the sand. ‘I see. Where’d the rest of your party get off to, anyway?’

  ‘What party would that be?’

  ‘Said you was meeting family. There’s two abandoned vehicles down there on the beach, two more here.’

  Ray considers where this is going, why she is sitting down, putting on the tired act like she would be content to wait all night. Maybe more of her people are on the way. Which means she knows something happened to her ranger partner, the two of them were tied together in whatever evil shit is going down out here, and the only end to this meeting is more violence. Giving the ranger the benefit of the doubt, letting Colt’s hope prevail over his own instincts, sealed her fate. They can’t afford to chew the cud with this cow tonight, not unless he wants to get Megan and Sierra killed too.

  Time to shut this situation down.

  ‘Oh, you know how it is. Bad things happen at the lake,’ he says, still smiling, wagging the fly rod at waist level as he walks around the pit, his back turned to her. ‘You warned us, but did we listen?’

  ‘Oh? Had some trouble, had ya?’

  Ray flicks the rod and turns, fencing forward until he is standing fewer than six feet from her kneecaps. He lowers the tip of the fly rod to her neck.

  Andie stares up at him as if he has lost his mind.

  And maybe he has. Because if he gets this wrong, he will never forgive himself.

  ‘They’re all dead,’ Ray says, summoning his best impression of a hit man who isn’t actually scared shitless. ‘My party. Your ranger partner. I cut his head off with a shovel and burned his corpse in that old truck. Now empty your pockets before I whip one of your eyeballs out and eat it, you evil bitch.’

  Andie emits a cry of shock, then sits there gaping at him. Ray can see the fury struggling to get out from behind her watery eyes.

  ‘I’m going to count to three,’ he says, raising the fly rod over her head. ‘One.’ He lowers it to her neck again, tickling her. ‘Two…’

  Andie blinks, and Ray lashes the fiberglass switch down as savagely as he can, cutting across the brow of her left eye, the bridge of her nose and the right cheek. The woman howls and covers her face, rocking forward and back, keening like a banshee. When she removes her hands, Ray sees a beautiful diagonal stripe of raised flesh, not yet bleeding but might be soon.

  ‘Empty your fucking pockets.’

  Shaking, the woman lifts her hips and wedges her hands into her tight jeans, turning the rabbit ears out. A few coins, a lighter and a mashed pack of Pyramid cigarettes fall in the sand. What is it with these locals and their Pyramids? The girl at the convenience store shared the same brand loyalty. Maybe she was Andie’s daughter. Maybe they will have to kill her on the way home.

  Andie raises her hands in surrender, breathing hard, eyes wide.

  ‘Back pockets too.’

  ‘There’s nothin’ in there. I left my wallet in the car up on the boat ramp.’

  Ray lashes the woman across the face as before, and again with a backhanded stroke that snaps blood from her nose. She jerks back in the lawn chair, shrieking, arms over her face, and Ray dances to one side, swiping down across her thighs, whipping her three or four times before the lawn chair gives out and Andie topples backward into the sand.

  It would be helpful to see the blood, he realizes. Red for human. Black for whatever the ones like the ranger have become.

  ‘Empty your fucking pockets!’ he screams, whipping the rod across her back. Now that she is on the ground, he has more room to wind up. He strikes her six or seven times across the back and neck before she stops trying to get up and flops on her belly, legs kicking behind her like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

  ‘Please, stop, oh help me, God!’ she screams. ‘I’m sorry, mister, please!’

  ‘Do it myself,’ Ray says. Planting one foot in the small of her back, he reaches down and digs a hand into one pocket, then the other, but they’re empty. A wet spot has appeared at the lowest middle of her butt. He’s whipped the piss out of her. The realization almost makes him feel bad, until he remembers Colt, the holes in her shirt, her thin body draining in the truck. This woman is connected to the man who pushed a steel blade into Colette Mercer. She might only be human, not cursed the way the ranger was, but she is kin to evil.