Lights Over Cloud Lake

by Nathan Hystad

  “Well, I like it. I wonder if Dan’s heard about these sightings. What have you found out so far?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I only arrived a few hours ago, but I did a little digging, and there have been visuals on strange lights in the sky, and other occurrences over the last forty years,” I said, taking a sip.

  “I didn’t think anyone still believed in that kind of thing. Haven’t they all been explained away, like weather balloons or stealth bombers, that kind of thing?” Clare asked, surprising me that she even knew that much about it.

  “There are still a lot of sightings, but most of it ends up being fake. Doctored images, and with every kid having the ability to make CG videos, they pop up online all the time. I do still think there are a large group of people out there that do see something, or at least believe they see something,” I said.

  “Are they crazy?” she asked. A chorus of frogs erupted into the night, creating an eerie soundtrack to our discussion.

  “There have been a lot of doctors working over these kinds of cases, but for the most part, there are no signs of abuse or mental illness. They’re truly unexplained,” I said.

  “You seem to know a lot about this. No wonder your boss sent you for the story.” Clare’s glass was empty, and I glanced at mine, which was basically untouched.

  “What is there to do around town?” I asked her, as if I hadn’t spent most of my childhood summers here. A lot could have changed in that time, but judging by Main Street when I drove into town, nothing had.

  “Not a lot. I’ve mostly been going for walks and taking the canoe out onto the lake. If you do either, bring bugspray, because it’s been nasty around here,” she advised.

  We talked for a while longer, and I finished my glass of wine, feeling the effects. I was a lightweight, and it didn’t mix well with my medication. We said our goodbyes, and ten minutes later, I was in bed, wearing a t-shirt instead of pajamas in the hot summer night. It was muggy inside, and I slid the window open wide, instantly relieved as the breeze carried in fresh cool air. An owl hooted, perhaps claiming a prize catch in the night.

  By the time I began to doze off, I’d started to remember something else about that summer. It wasn’t clear like the other scenes; more imagery than anything. Before I drifted away to sleep, lights blasted through my open window, against the wood paneling. The wall by the bed began to shake, vibrating as if by a terrible force outside my cabin. My breath caught in my chest, and my eyes sprang wide open, the rest of my body unable to move.

  I told myself I had to move. I couldn’t stay in bed, not with this happening. I jolted upright, ready to run, when I saw the lights move away. It was a big diesel truck, and someone got out of the passenger side before the engine rumbled again, taking the vehicle around the keyhole toward the gravel road.

  “You need to relax, Jess,” I told myself. Jess! Why had I used my old name? I was getting rattled being here. The lights, the shaking walls. It was all too familiar.

  I stayed awake for another hour before finally falling asleep.

  July 12th – 2020

  “I’m here to see Sheriff McCrae,” I told the robust woman behind the receptionist’s desk.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she asked, using her middle finger to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

  I shook my head. “No, but I can make one if you like.”

  A door opened and a man stepped out of his office. He had crumbs on his shirt, and a piece of a donut stuck to the side of his mouth. Time hadn’t been on Sheriff McCrae’s side. My brief recollection of him was a strong and macho man with a full head of hair. I think he might have been wearing a cape in my memory.

  There was no recognition in his eyes as his stare met mine. Why would there be? “Who’s this, Patty?”

  “Eva Heart from New York. I’m interested in talking to you about the recent event,” I said, sticking my hand out like an old pro. He took it, and I shook with purpose, like my dad had taught me. He grimaced.

  “About the missing persons?” he asked, wiping the crumb from his lips.

  This piqued my interest, so I went with it. “Yes, exactly.”

  “Why don’t you come inside?” McCrae glanced at Patty, who was glaring at me. “Hold my calls, okay?”

  She nodded, and I followed the sheriff into his office. It was like stepping through a time machine. He had a singing fish mounted on his wall, dusty antlers behind his desk, and an old six-disc changer, along with a stack of CDs with names of bands from the seventies, stuff my dad used to listen to when we were young.

  “Pop a squat,” he said, pointing at one of the orange chairs across from his desk.

  I obliged. “What can you tell me about the missing persons?” I pressed, grabbing my recording device.

  He glanced at it, looking like he might request I discard it, but spoke anyway. “There isn’t a lot to tell. Mark Fisher was known to be into some bad stuff. We’ve booked him twice on minor drug-related charges, so the fact that he up and disappeared wasn’t too surprising. Even his brother isn’t overly concerned.”

  I made a mental note to track down Mark Fisher’s brother. “What else?”

  “Then there’s Tucker. He’s been spouting nonsense about aliens for years now, and I think he finally had a few too many bottles of vodka. We spent some time combing the lake but haven’t managed to find him yet. I suspect he’ll turn up soon, but hopefully not until after the Cloud Lake Summer Kick-Off,” McCrae said.

  “You haven’t done the Kick-Off yet?” I asked, realizing my mistake. I had to be more cautious.

  “What do you know about that?” he asked, leaning forward.

  I stammered, “I’ve read about it. I thought you did it closer to the beginning of the month.”

  “No, we changed it to the third week of the month. We found the last two weeks of July and the first week of August were our busiest, so we wanted to overlap it. We’ve been doing that for over ten years, so your intel must be dated,” he told me. “You sticking around for it? It’s quite the festivity.”

  “I’m only here for a few days,” I said.

  “Well, it’s this Thursday if you’re interested. Where were we?” McCrae asked. I noticed his computer was one of those old clunky towers that you never saw anymore, and his monitor was thick, at least ten or so years old. I guessed the Cloud Lake sheriff’s budget wasn’t too flush.

  “What do you think about the possibility of a resort coming to Cloud Lake?” I asked. I wanted to know more about the vanished people, but the timing on the question was too perfect.

  His eyes grew wide at my query. “How did you hear about that? You must be a good reporter, because I only had the call from Mr. Newton an hour ago, wanting to meet to discuss it. I also received calls from a few of the local business owners, excited at the prospect.”

  I smiled innocently. “I have my sources.”

  “Well, hold on to them, because they’re ahead of the curve,” he said.

  “I take it all this talk about aliens visiting Cloud Lake wouldn’t be too good for business, then?” I asked.

  McCrae picked up a pen and flipped it between his fingers. “You’d be surprised how many people around here think the town should roll with it. It’s been attracting press, and there’s even a tour coming to town this week to see the lay of the land and watch for a UFO. Insanity, if you ask me.”

  I was glad to have made this meeting. This was the exact kind of thing I needed for my article. “Can you give me any details about this tour?”

  “Go see Henry at the feed store. He’s the one crazy enough to let them on his property. He’s even got some of them camping out for the night in tents. He’s done it for a few years now.” I could tell the sheriff didn’t believe in the sightings, and that he didn’t think the missing citizens of Cloud Lake were related to all the UFO talk. I couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t a believer; most people weren’t. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I was.

  “I will. Was there anyone e
lse missing?” I asked, seeing McCrae’s interest in me beginning to wane.

  His gaze lowered to his desk, and he nodded. “Carly. The Miller girl. It was only a few days ago, and she was having a sleepover at a friend’s house about a block from her own house. The kids claim she left in the middle of the night, but no one saw her do it. She never made it home.”

  I swallowed hard. “How old is this girl?”

  “Thirteen. Real shame. We didn’t find a damned sign of her anywhere,” he said. “This town hasn’t been so devastated in years. We searched for three days straight, and the volunteers are still going, though not as strong as usual. No sign of her anywhere. No suspects. It has us in a real pickle.” His gaze drifted to the wall, where an old faded newspaper article stuck to a cork board. The date was only too familiar for me, printed on July 16th, 2001. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, wanting to fish a pill from my purse. I couldn’t do that in front of him, so I excused myself.

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” I was suddenly sure he’d recognize me. That he’d take my hand, his eyes going wide, and ask me how I was doing after all these years, but he didn’t.

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Heart,” he said.

  “Miss Heart. Not married,” I said.

  “Don’t let the men of Cloud Lake know that. They’ll be lining up,” he said innocently enough.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” I left him to his work and raced past Patty at the receptionist’s desk, heading outside and instantly feeling the morning heat. I used to love the warm summers and had become used to them again in New York City. It didn’t get much hotter waiting for the number three, two platforms beneath Broadway after a day in the park. Still, this was abnormally hot for Cloud Lake. I didn’t recall these kinds of temperatures when we used to stay here, but I could have been wrong.

  I slid into my car and turned it on, feeling the cool press of air conditioning against my skin. I had on a sleeveless green blouse and gray capris, finishing off with leather sandals. It looked professional, but was airy enough to not overheat in. Even after my moment of near-panic, I found I didn’t feel like drowning it out with a pill, so I left my purse where it was. Something about being here was changing me, and I wanted to accept my reality for now.

  I found my tablet and opened the file on the home page labeled Cloud Lake Agenda. I added a note to talk to Henry at the feed store, find out who Mark Fisher’s brother was, and speak to the Millers about their missing daughter. The wound would be fresh, and I considered broaching the subject with someone that Carly was friends with, someone close but not in the family, who might be willing to talk.

  Add that to the bullet points about locating Chester Brown, the farmer from the article I’d found in the local county’s online paper, and I had quite the task list ahead of me. I used a stylus to cross off one of my lines and scanned through the rest, wondering which to take first.

  Talk to the local Sheriff’s department

  Locate Chester Brown’s address and interview him

  Locate Mark Fisher’s brother

  Talk to Summer Kick-Off committee council member

  Locate Carly Miller family, friends, and/or parents

  Go to the feed store and talk to Henry about the Tourist UFO watch group

  I added one more item that might have been more personal than story-related, but I typed it anyway.

  Find out if Clark still lives in Cloud Lake

  Satisfied I had a good jumping-off point for the story, I decided to go to the feed store first. I popped up an online map of the town and searched for anything remotely close to that description. Nothing came up. I decided to drive around Main to find it. Cloud Lake was a lot of things, but widespread it was not.

  I found the place within ten minutes. The main drag was quiet on a Sunday morning; the only people that seemed to be out and about were heading to church. I drove past the store with a hay bale on the logo and followed two older cars with dressed-up families inside. They pulled over and entered the church’s gravel parking lot, kicking up dust at me.

  I parked beside an elderly man, who exited his car, staring at me with judging eyes. He was in a suit that had to be twenty years old, dark brown with an awful pastel-blue tie. I smiled at him and stepped out, unsure why I was bothering coming here. I glanced at the sign along the street, seeing the letters that spelled out this week’s sermon topic.

  The only light in the sky you should worship is the Lord, our savior.

  I snapped a picture of it with my cell phone. Now that would make a great image for the article. I sneaked around it, crossing the street to take another with the church in the backdrop, making sure there were no prying eyes as I did this.

  I guess I missed one.

  “Miss, what are you doing?” a man asked from beside the church entrance. He wasn’t dressed up like the others, but he had a nice polo on, and he wore a smile that could melt a stick of butter in seconds.

  I shoved my phone inside my pocket and walked over to him. “I’m visiting here for a few days, and I wanted some pictures of the trip. Are you heading in?” I asked the stranger.

  He didn’t make a move. “Visiting, hey? I guess you could say I am too.” He stuck his hand out. “John Oliver.”

  “Eva. Eva Heart.” I shook his hand, getting a firm grip in return. His eyes were intense, and I had a hard time placing his age. He had the eyes of someone who’d seen a lot, but the smooth cheeks and disposition of someone younger, maybe my age.

  “Well, Eva, pleasure to meet you. Would you mind if we sat together? I don’t really know many people around town,” he said.

  I was usually more cautious than this, but he was handsome, and we were going inside a church. How much danger could it put me in? “Sounds good.”

  The place wasn’t large, and I recalled there being a handful of other denominations in town. This one was Baptist, and I was instantly transported into another lifetime, hearing the hymns being sung to the rhythm of an organ. For a while after my ordeal, Dad used to force Zoe and me to attend church. We hated it, and I honestly didn’t believe my dad benefited much from it either. He was searching for something and hoped it would help me. It hadn’t.

  “How about here?” John asked, motioning to the rear pew, which was empty save one older woman wearing a thick sweater. The church didn’t appear to be air-conditioned, and I wondered how she wasn’t sweating in droves.

  The music stopped, and a hefty man clothed in a robe emerged onto the stage, his presence instantly filling the room. The entire congregation seemed to lean toward him, and I found it all unsettling.

  “Good morning, family. We’ve been over the recent news already, and we’ve prayed for the recovery of Carly Miller.” I watched as his gaze lingered on a couple with a small boy near the front of the church. The woman was crying, and I marked her outfit. That was clearly Mrs. Miller. A woman from beside her reached over the small boy and clutched her hand. I marked her too. She was the one I needed to talk to.

  “There’s been a lot of talk in town lately about visitors from other planets, seeking our people, our family to take, and do ungodly things to their bodies and minds. We need to squash these blasphemous ideas from the world around us.” He raised his big hands, thick fingers clenched together, and I thought he might be able to choke a tree with those puppies.

  “There are no unexplained lights over Cloud Lake. There are only clouded minds and souls.”

  A chorus of amens rang through the crowd, but John and I remained silent. We sat there for the next hour while the pastor spoke of God’s absolute power, and how we were his only children in the vast universe. I fought to concentrate as I scanned the crowd, making up stories in my head about most of them. I wondered if anyone in this room had sighted the lights above the town over the last couple weeks, and bet that at least some of them had.

  By the time it was over, the rest of the congregation was standing, talking and laughing, shaking hands and hugging, and I made
for the exit, John following me. “That was… interesting,” he said, holding the door to outside open for me. I stepped out into the scorching late-morning sun and covered my eyes with a flat palm.

  “What do you believe, John?” I asked, and he shrugged.

  “I believe in a god, but I also believe there could be beings on other worlds. Whether they’ve deemed us worthy enough to visit is another story entirely,” he said, passing me another infectious smile.

  I glanced at my phone, seeing it was almost noon.

  “Do you have somewhere to be?” he asked, and I shook my head, even though I kind of did. “Then how about lunch? We can go to the lake. I’m staying right on the water.”

  I hesitated, and he seemed to understand. “You meet me at the picnic table in thirty minutes. Here’s the address.” He scribbled it on the back of a business card and passed it to me.

  My breath caught at the street name. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sure. I’m fine. Just hot. Can I bring anything?” I asked.

  “I’d love your conversation. It’ll be nice to have a meal with someone again. See you soon?” he asked, heading for a two-door Ford truck.

  “See you soon,” I replied, wondering what I was getting myself into.

  Once inside my car, I keyed the address into my tablet, and my suspicions were right on. The Beach Boys played on the local radio station as I stared at the screen. The cabin was next to my Grandma’s. The one Peter Martin used to own. The man who was now in prison.

  July 5th – 2001

  The water was chilly as I jumped in off the dock, pulling my knees into my chest as I plunged deep into the lake. I emerged, spitting a mouthful of water at Zoe, who was floating on a yellow inflatable pool bed. It had a cup holder, and her can of Coke almost fell over as she splashed me. One of the Beach Boys’ songs played on the radio sitting on the end of the dock, rabbit ears high in the sky. They crooned about surfing, sun, and girls, as if there was nothing else in the world.