The Liar of Red Valley

by Walter Goodwater

  “Nowhere to run,” the Crying Boy said as he crept forward on the swaying chute. “Nowhere to hide.”

  At Sadie’s feet, the River’s black water rushed by. It looked cold. It looked endless. She pulled back, sickened by the dark depths that seemed to call out to her. There was still blood on her thumb; did she have time to write another Lie, one that would hide her from the Crying Boy as well?

  The dock shuddered as Kyle’s bulk landed on it. No, it was too late. The horrible, deformed thing—and its glistening, needle-sharp claws—was only a few feet away. The space of a heartbeat. A final heartbeat. The Crying Boy’s wail rose high, running out over the water and high into the starry sky.

  “You don’t know what suffering is yet, little girl,” he said as he took another step toward her. “But I will show you. I will—”

  But Sadie had heard enough. Maybe she was going to die tonight. The Liars never last long, Mary had said. Maybe this strange, ugly life she’d inherited wasn’t meant to last. But even if that were true, she knew one thing for certain: she wasn’t going to let herself get killed by some douchebag named Kyle. She took a step backward, toward the edge. The Crying Boy hesitated, surprised she’d voluntarily get closer to the River. Then just as his claws shot out for her, she moved back, over the edge, into the deeps.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sadie fell. And kept falling.

  She tried to swim, tried to move, but the water held her fast. Held her tight.

  She saw nothing. Not the surface, not the bottom, not the receding lights from the mill. Not the Crying Boy’s single awful eye. Just the blackness.

  Her lungs burned. But still she fell, away from air, away from life. The water latched onto her like hands, like chains, and pulled her down, down, down.

  No! Sadie fought. She kicked her legs, rising. The water pulled, but she pushed back. Don’t stop, don’t stop! Just a little bit more. Her hand felt air and she kicked even harder. So close now. But just as her head was about to rise above the water, the River pulled her under.

  As the last of her air died in her chest, suddenly she could see; and what she saw nearly drove her mad. Things moving in the dark water, older than time, harder than death. Eyes watching her, eyes all around her, eyes that could see through her, eyes that could consume her. A hundred thousand mouths, hungry, bottomless. Fingers probing, grasping, tearing, taking. Stuff of nightmares, beyond nightmares, beyond imagining.

  And the bones. She saw the River’s bottom and it was littered with bones, like a mass grave, like a killing field. They rushed past her as the River bore her downstream, human bones and other things, unknowable things. They were never-ending, always more, the dead heaped upon the dead, skulls grinning amidst the silt.

  Sadie thought of Nick, the boy who had been taken by the River, whose mother had asked Sadie to Lie to make the pain go away. Is this what you saw before the end, Nick?

  Then the black again, but not a nothingness: a presence, bigger than the sky, bigger than the world. All around her, pressing down on her, crushing her. Devouring her. Sadie screamed. The eager water rushed in, filling her up, weighing her down. But still she fought, still she screamed, soundless in the void, but angry. Defiant. Unbroken.

  You are not like the others. The voice wasn’t booming like the King’s, but it was everywhere, like the water, in the water, of the water: liquid, cold, black. Inhuman.

  Suddenly Sadie wasn’t moving anymore, just floating. The water rushed onward, but it parted around her, enough to let air in from the surface. Sadie choked and breathed and vomited and breathed.

  We have tasted many of your kind, the voice said again. Ground them to dust on our rocks. Broken them. Buried them. But you… what are you?

  Sadie could still see nothing, just the dark water all around her. “I am the Liar of Red Valley,” she said when she had enough air to speak.

  A pause. Should that mean something to us?

  “I… don’t know,” Sadie said, uncertain. “Who are you?”

  Red Valley, said the voice. That is what your kind calls this place. Such a meaningless name. A valley is nothing. A long hole in the earth. Emptiness. Why name yourself after nothing? What created that valley, what carved the earth? Your kind is disappointing.

  The crush of the water returned. It forced the air out of Sadie’s lungs. The opening began to close. “You are the River?” Sadie asked quickly, before she could be pulled under again.

  I was, we are, they will be, said the River. You have power. Who created you?

  “The Liar’s power was given to my family by the King.”

  Something like annoyance crept into the River’s voice. The King? You dare speak of that pretender to us? The King has nothing to give that he has not taken. Oh, you are tiresome, creature of the King. We will let you join the others in the deep.

  Pressure built up in Sadie’s ears as the water began to close in. “Please, I’m no friend to the King! He used my family because he needed to hide his secret.”

  The water was up to Sadie’s chin, but it stopped. The voice came again, this time like a whisper coming from inside her ears. A secret? Ah, secrets are worth knowing. We would hear it. Tell us the King’s secret.

  Sadie opened her mouth to speak. The whispers seemed to have told everyone except the River the secret, so there was little use in hoarding it now. What did she have to lose? But then she realized: that was the wrong question entirely. She should be asking what she had to gain. She remembered her negotiation with Beto. A business transaction, he’d called it.

  “My family has guarded that secret for generations,” Sadie said. “Why should I give it up now?”

  Would you like to drown with it?

  The bones along the riverbed flashed in Sadie’s mind. “You can swallow me, as you have countless others. But then you’ll learn nothing. And there is no other Liar left, so the secret truly will die with me. If that’s what you want…”

  Water crashed into Sadie’s face and she was pulled down, down, down. But then she was rising and the River split again and she could breathe.

  You would bargain with eternity, said the River. We have stood here before wind and time. We have run this course since the world was new. We are the current and the flood, we are unending, ever-changing, unstoppable, unknowable. Your forebears would give us their firstborn as a sacrifice and beg us not to overrun our banks and take more. They worshipped us with offerings of blood and treasure. They feared us. And now you would bargain when you should grovel?”

  Sadie wondered if all ancient beings had these speeches prepared for when they met with defiance from puny mortals like herself, or if they were usually improvised. They did seem to like to hear themselves speak.

  “I’m still alive,” Sadie said. “So I must have something worth bargaining for.”

  The water rose. Sadie tilted her head back but it still reached her mouth. The River’s voice was soft and liquid in her ears. We could make you beg for death.

  “Let me go,” Sadie said, spitting dirty water, “and I’ll tell you the King’s secret, and what he fears.”

  Done, said the River, and the water receded. Now, tell us.

  “I have your word?”

  With every moment that passes, we change, said the River. The currents do not stop. I was, now we are. We are always new. We could give you our word and it would mean nothing, for I would already be gone and we would already be reborn.

  “So, I shouldn’t trust you?”

  We know not what one of your kind should do, said the River. But you are in our deeps, held fast by our current. What other choice do you have?

  Sadie’s body trembled as the water’s chill seeped in under her skin. It was all around her, a wall of inky dark ready to fall on her. There were no other choices. So through chattering teeth, she told the River of the King’s Lie, of his wound received long ago, and of his enemies who descended upon Red Valley. The River made no interruption, but did not loosen its grip.

&nbs
p; When she was done, the water around her filled with a strange, musical sound. It was the strangest, most beautiful thing Sadie had ever heard. After a moment, she realized it was the River’s laughter.

  We are so pleased I did not devour you, said the River when the laughter faded. This is a story we will cherish for some time.

  “So you hate the King, too?” Sadie was beginning to wonder if anyone liked him. The people of Red Valley feared him and everyone else seemed to despise him.

  You claim you are a keeper of secrets, said the River. But there is much you do not know. Your kind has always been foolish and quick to trust, quick to believe. You make terrible alliances and it will be the end of you.

  “What is it that I don’t know? Tell me.”

  But you have nothing left to bargain with, said the River. And we grow tired of you.

  Sadie decided not to press her luck. “So you’ll let me go?”

  In truth, we were going to drown you even after you told us his secret, the River admitted. You are all the King’s creatures, whether you know it or not, and deserve nothing but death. But the current has moved on and I have changed my mind.

  “Umm… thanks?”

  The water slammed into her again, stealing her air. She kicked and thrashed but there was nothing to thrash against. Down, down. The weight of it pressed on her bones, her ears, her brain. The dark things in the deep fled as the River vented its anger on Sadie.

  But we would have you know this: What you are, the River’s voice said all around her, at last. Your power. It does not come from the King. Nothing comes from him. This place has the power. Had the power, before he came. Now it all drains away, sucked up by that fat tick. The land, the air, the people, the water. The King takes it all and your kind does nothing, because you are afraid, because you are ignorant. You will lose everything and you do not even know why.

  Sadie was spinning, spinning. Rushing down the River. Disappearing.

  He’s going to kill us all, said the River. And it is all your fault.

  The beach at Hogsback wasn’t really anything special, just a spit of sand along a bend in the River, dotted by rocks and clumps of brave grass. During the daytime, few bothered to come here; it was far from town and there wasn’t much to see. But at night, headlights blazed down Old Hogsback Road and lit up the beach. Laughter and music danced out over the black water. It had become a place of tradition and ritual for the high school students of Red Valley: a first beer, a first kiss, something more in the secret dark. They danced and sang and burned brightly under the summer sky.

  They knew the River was death. Maybe that’s why they came here, to live so brazenly just feet away from a sudden end. They’d all grown up in Red Valley; they knew the rules. Sometimes though, being drunk, young, and stupid, they forgot the rules. Or, more likely, they convinced themselves the rules didn’t apply to them. Rules were for children or for adults, not for the young rulers of the world.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Bryce.”

  “What? I’m not scared.”

  “Well I am.”

  Bryce tossed his empty beer can aside. “C’mon, Jenny. Don’t you want to go skinny dipping with me?”

  “In there?” Jenny crossed her arms over her chest. “Hell, no.”

  The sounds of the party behind them amplified a moment as someone failed spectacularly at a keg stand. The lights from their cars and the bonfire cut through the reeds, casting yellow beams and nighttime shadows out over the River. Bryce reached for Jenny’s hand, but she swatted him away.

  “It’s just water,” he said with a sloppy grin.

  “No, it isn’t,” she said. “You know that. Remember Alejandro two years ago?”

  Bryce waved that away. “Dude was a terrible swimmer.”

  “He was on the swim team.”

  “And I beat him every time.”

  “I’m not going in there.”

  Bryce stepped closer to the River’s edge. Jenny took a step back.

  “Don’t worry, babe,” Bryce said. “I’ll protect you.”

  “I’m going to go back to the party.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  As Jenny retreated, Bryce stared out over the River. The rushing water almost drowned out the noise from the party. Gnats tickled his face. Of course he remembered Alejandro; they had been friends since the second grade. When he’d heard the news, Bryce had locked himself in his room and cried for an hour.

  He never told anyone that.

  At the funeral, he’d been appropriately stony-faced, just like the other guys from school. No one knew why Alejandro had gone into the River. It didn’t make any sense. They all knew the rules.

  Bryce’s foot was only a few inches from the River’s edge. It crept forward, maybe on its own, until the toe of his shoe barely touched the dark water.

  “Stupid river,” Bryce muttered. He started to leave, to go make it up to Jenny and find another beer, but his foot wouldn’t move. It sank into the mud, deeper into the water. What the hell? He yanked on his leg, but now the water was up to his ankle. His sock was soaked and his foot was starting to go numb.

  “Hey!” he shouted, but Jenny was gone and the others just kept laughing and shouting. “Hey, let go!”

  His other foot was now wet, too, as he tried to get enough footing to pull himself free. He was in the River. How stupid could he be? You don’t go in the River. Alejandro knew that; Bryce knew that. Why wouldn’t his legs move? Why couldn’t he get out?

  Then he saw something moving under the water. His thrashing stopped; his eyes went wide. It was coming toward him. Oh, God. Oh, God.

  The River disgorged a body onto the bank right next to him. He screamed and suddenly his legs could move. He jumped out of the water and landed on his ass in the reeds next to the dead body of a girl with a purple backpack.

  “What the—?”

  Then the girl raised her head and puked black water all over the River bank.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sadie woke up in a hospital bed. She remembered some of how she got here: the panicking high schoolers, the frantic drive back into town, the nurses asking her if she was okay. But it was all obscured in a haze, like watching her memories through rushing water.

  She knew she was lucky to be alive. She’d escaped a Crying Boy and convinced the River to spare her life, all in one night. She should be dead. Instead, she was grateful for the scratchy pillow under her head and the thin blanket pulled up over her legs.

  “How’re you feeling?” It was Nurse Abagail, who’d called her about her mom. She stood over the bed with a clipboard in one hand and a plastic cup of water in the other.

  Sadie slowly sat up. “Not great,” she said with a croaking voice.

  “Those kids who brought you in here said they pulled you out of the River,” Nurse Abagail said with a tone of parental disapproval in her voice.

  “Something like that.”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Yeah,” Sadie said, taking the water but not drinking it, not yet. The hospital room was small but clean. The curtains were drawn tight but she could see a sliver of morning light outside. “I guess I do.”

  “We don’t get many people in here who came out of that River,” Abagail said sternly. She thought a second, then added, “In fact, we don’t get anybody in here who came out of that River.”

  “Just lucky, I guess,” Sadie said. She could still feel the River’s grip on her body, still hear its melodious, terrifying voice ringing in her skull.

  “Was it worth it?” Abagail asked. “Whatever it was that made you jump in there?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well I guess that’s that, then,” Abagail replied as she replaced Sadie’s chart in the slot at the foot of the bed. “You seem to be fine, all things considered. When you passed out in the ER, we were a bit worried, but I think you’re on the mend. Which is good, since we might be needing that bed soon.”

  Sadie’s head was throbbing so sh
e finally forced herself to down the cup of water. “Why would you need the bed?”

  Abagail frowned. Deep lines appeared on her face. “It’s real bad out there, my dear. We’ve got firefighters coming in with burns or smoke-inhalation from the fire north of town. Sounds like they can’t do a thing to contain it. They’ve already started evacuating people.

  “And then there’s the attacks.”

  “Attacks?”

  “All over town last night,” Abagail said. “Horrible things crawling out of the dark, grabbing people. The sheriffs are doing their best to keep them back, though from what I heard from the victims, it sounds like the King’s Men are doing most of the work.” She sighed. “The whole world’s gone crazy out there, or at least our little corner of it. Not sure how it’s going to get set right again.”

  Sadie wasn’t either, and after her conversation with the River, she doubted she even understood all the dangers Red Valley was facing.

  Abagail lowered her voice. “People coming in here are talking about one thing out there—the worst thing—like nothing they’ve ever seen before. Some great monster on giant wings, hunting people in the dark and giving orders to the other beasties.”

  So the King’s enemies had arrived. More were probably on the way.

  Abagail forced a smile back onto her face and patted Sadie’s leg. “I’m just glad you’re safe. After what happened with your mom, well… I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Thanks,” Sadie said. A bubble of emotion rose in her chest and she flushed. After everything she’d been through, all she’d done and all she’d dealt with, the nurse’s kindly face and simple words were surprisingly comforting. “It’s been a bad week.”

  She started crying in spite of herself. Abagail didn’t hesitate but wrapped her strong arms around Sadie’s shoulders and rocked her. The tears just kept coming, like they were pulled from the River’s endless depths, and they drowned out her words. She tried to talk anyway but Abagail shushed her and held her tighter.

  “It’s okay,” the nurse said. She ran a hand over Sadie’s hair. “I know what Hell looks like, and you look like you’ve been through it. Pain like that doesn’t just go away, so you got to be strong, but not right now. Nobody in this room has to be strong. You just have to heal.”